


"matriarchs"

by bwayfan25



Category: ER (TV 1994)
Genre: AU where Kerry has a daughter from her marriage, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blended family, Custody Arrangements, Disability, F/F, Family, Family Drama, Meanwhile Susan is dealing with Chloe's abrupt departure, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Original Character(s), Post-Divorce, and her mom is still alive and living with them when she starts at County, yeah it's another family au bite me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 190,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24111415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwayfan25/pseuds/bwayfan25
Summary: Matriarch (noun): A woman who rules or dominates a family, group, or stateThe end of the summer of 1995 brings new things to the ER, namely a new Chief Resident with a pension for giving orders and maintaining very strict boundaries between her home and work lives and the sudden disappearance of a resident's sister and apparent abandonment of her infant daughter. And though it appears the tension between the two women is soon to combust, combustion outside of their control puts the Chief Resident's personal life on full display. But though the sparks left in it's wake are not always of the romantic sort, there is no denying it might just work out very well for both of them.AU where Kerry had a daughter prior to coming to County and has to navigate not only her new job in the ER, but also her work-life balance and relationships.
Comments: 172
Kudos: 62





	1. Prelude #1: Weaver

Kerry wasn’t sure if Annie was intentionally chattering away in an effort to distract her mother and grandmother from the number of peas still left on her plate, but regardless of whether that was the goal or not, Kerry was  _ not _ going to let her get away with it.

“But then Cookie Monster knocked it over because he thought he saw a cookie. But he  _ didn’t _ see a cookie. He saw something he thought  _ looked _ like a cookie,” the young girl explained sincerely. “And it made Elmo sad because he had worked hard to make it and Cookie Monster ruined it.”

Kerry and Mildred both nodded as earnestly as they could given that Annie's excitement in the retelling of her story (and her opinions  _ on  _ said story) made them both lose track of whatever it was Elmo had been making in the first place. 

At their nods, Annie straightened up proudly, and, now confident in the answer, asked to be excused.

“Not yet,” Kerry replied, turning her attention back to her own plate. “You haven’t eaten your peas.”

The five-year-old deflated. 

“But the peas are  _ yucky _ .”

“And they’re also good for you. So, you need to take three more bites before you can leave,” Kerry said, before quickly adding, “And  _ no _ , one pea per bite does not count.”

Annie, who had already picked up her fork and made to stab an individual legume, deflated even more. 

“Why are all the things that are good for me the yucky ones?”

Kerry just gave a shrug and took a bite of her own peas. Mildred glanced at her for a brief moment before sliding Annie’s plate over to hers. 

“Here, dear,” Mildred said, scooping a little bit of her mashed potatoes onto Annie’s plate. “Mix the peas into the potatoes. It’ll make them less yucky.”

Mildred slid the plate back, earning her a disgruntled expression from her daughter. But, as she was well-accustomed to this look (and many others), Mildred just ignored it.

Annie gave one last pleading look at Kerry, but upon only receiving encouragement to keep going, she slumped in her chair. She glumly picked up her fork and mixed a forkful of peas into the potatoes.

“Peas and potatoes,” she mumbled in between two of her three required bites. “Pea-tatoes.”

Despite having to take the final bite of her pea-tatoes, Annie did smile slightly at her own cleverness. And the smile only grew when Mildred chuckled and told her that her grandfather would have been very proud.

“I took my three bites. So, can I be excused  _ now?” _

“Yes. You can be excused now. Thank you for taking your three bites,” Kerry replied. “But you need to help Grandma clean up before you can go play.”

“Oh? And why does  _ Grandma _ have to clean up?” Mildred asked, her eyebrows rising. “Why can’t  _ Momma _ clean up?”

“Because Momma cooked.”

Though mother and daughter shared a raised eyebrow and then a chuckle, granddaughter paid them both no mind. Instead, she just began reaching across the table for the dinner plates to stack before sliding them towards Mildred.

Annie had just managed to slide off her chair and slip her arms into the cuffs of the two purple forearm crutches that had been tucked underneath her chair when there was a knock on the door. 

“I’ll get it!

“No.  _ I’ll _ get it,” Kerry corrected. She pointed Annie towards the kitchen. “You go help Grandma.”

Annie pouted at the door-getting interception, but nevertheless made for the kitchen. Once there, she set her crutches aside before climbing up the step stool near the sink to help rinse off the plates before Mildred loaded them into the dishwasher. 

Kerry opened the door to find a young man in a UPS uniform waiting on the small porch. In one hand he carried his ledger while the other hand held a tall package upright. 

“Are you…” He checked the ledger. “...Kerry Weaver?”

At Kerry’s replying nod, he handed her the ledger and the pen. She took them both and signed before handing them back. 

“Here you go. And don’t worry. It’s long, but it ain’t too heavy.” he said, sliding the package forward. “Usually I’d say it was a Christmas tree, but it’s a bit too early for that.”

Kerry muttered a word of thanks, which went unnoticed by the man as he laughed at his own joke all the way back to his truck. 

Rolling her eyes, she pulled the package up and slid it over the threshold into the house.

“Is that them?” Annie shouted excitedly from the kitchen. “Are they here?”

Before Kerry could answer her, Annie had leapt down from where she stood on the stool and dashed into the living room, the dishes, her crutches, and her grandmother forgotten behind her as she dove head first onto the carpet. Any rugburn that had occurred due to this action was nothing compared to her excitement for that which lay inside the box.

“Are you done helping Grandma?” Kerry asked as Annie reached for the box. 

“Yes, she is,” Mildred called out in reply. 

Kerry sighed. 

“Is she actually done helping you or are you just letting her off the hook?” Kerry called back. 

“Whichever you prefer, dear.”

Kerry rolled her eyes again and carefully stepped over Annie to get a pair of scissors out of the junk drawer at the edge of the kitchen counter. But just as she pulled them and a tape measure out of the drawer and turned back for the living room, there was the loud  _ RIP  _ of cardboard tearing. 

Kerry and Mildred both glanced around the cabinets towards the sound and found Annie with the end piece of the box in her hands looking slightly sheepish. 

“I opened it.”

Kerry just chuckled and made to sit on the floor near where Annie sat, partly looking, partly crawling into the box to fish out its treasures. Kerry gently scooted her back and reached into the box herself.

“One for Momma…” Annie said as Kerry pulled the first object - an adult-sized forearm crutch with a silver body and black cuff - out of the box and set it aside before reaching in again. “...And two for me!”

Kerry pulled objects two and three - pediatric forearm crutches with bright green bodies and gray cuffs - out of the box, her eyes widening as she set them down in front of Annie.

Annie, also wide-eyed, slowly picked up one of the crutches and looked it up and down. Kerry and Mildred were both watching her closely, trying to discern if her expression was one of awe or horror.

“Whoa. They’re… so…  _ green. _ ”

“Is this the color you wanted? Because if it’s not, I can send them back-”

“No! I love them!” Annie said quickly, nearly hitting herself in the face with the cuff as she hugged the crutch tight against her. “I wanted the bright green.”

“Okay, okay,” Kerry said, raising her hands defensively. As she lowered them, her brow furrowed. “But… Are you  _ sure?” _

_ “Kerry.” _

Naturally, Kerry raised her hands defensively again. But she didn’t have a chance to reply to Mildred before Annie got up. 

“Wait, wait. Don’t put them on yet,” Kerry said as Annie made to slide one of the cuffs onto her arm. 

“Why not?”

“I need to make sure they’re the right height first,” she explained before turning to look at Mildred. “Mom, could you toss me her shoes?”

Mildred nodded and picked up the pair of pink  _ My Little Pony _ sneakers from next to the door. She tossed them one-by-one towards Kerry, who caught them each before instructing Annie to sit down on the couch so she could put them on. 

Once she’d donned her shoes, Annie stood up from the couch. Kerry scooted back to give them both room.

“Put them down for a second, please.”

“But, I don’t  _ want _ to,” Annie whined in reply.

“Annie, it’s just for a second.”

“But  _ Momma-” _

“Annalise, what did I just say?”

“But I’ve been waiting for them  _ forever _ ,” Annie protested. 

“You haven’t been waiting for them forever; you’ve been waiting for them for two weeks,” Kerry said, shaking her head. “You can wait a couple more minutes.”

Annie pouted, but nevertheless let Kerry pull the crutch off of her arm. (She did, however, let out the smallest “Nu-uh.”)

“Now, stand up straight for me,” Kerry said as she picked up the measuring tape. “Relax your arms and bend your elbows.”

“Didn’t we do this at the doctor’s office?” Annie said as Kerry began to measure the distance from her wrists to the floor.

“Yes, we did. But I just want to double check,” Kerry said in an explanatory (but defensive) tone. “Alright. Now let me see your arm.”

Annie held out her arm as requested. Kerry then measured three inches from her elbow and then from that point to her wrist. Making mental note of the measurements, Kerry then picked up each crutch in turn and adjusted the length as necessary. 

“Alright. Now you can put them on.”

Annie excitedly took the crutches from Kerry and slid her arms into the cuffs (or “loops” as preferred to call them). 

“How do they feel?” Kerry asked, tilting her head slightly to observe as Annie tested them out. 

Annie took a lap around the coffee table first, testing the four-point gait her physical therapist (and mother) preferred her to use first. These steps were slow and involved each foot and crutch taking their own individual turn to support her weight. But they were soon overtaken by her darting off down the hallway and back in her preferred gait, which consisted of a combination of the “swing-through” gait where the crutches went down at the same time and she swung herself forward and something like a gallop.

“They’re taller,” Annie remarked upon returning to the living room. 

“Well, they’re supposed to be. That’s why we had to get new ones,” Kerry replied, nodding. “But are they  _ too _ tall?”

Annie looked down at them for a moment and then pulled herself up to full height. 

“No. I like them.”

“I like them too,” Mildred chimed in. She took a seat on the couch behind where Kerry sat on the floor. “You should pick out something that goes good with green for your first day tomorrow.”

The way Annie’s eyes grew wide in dawning understanding made it clear to the women watching her that the thought of pairing an outfit with her crutches had never occurred to her before.

“I will!” she said, beaming. “Momma, you should pick one too! For your first day as Chief President.”

“Chief  _ Resident,  _ honey,” Kerry said, unable to conceal a small smile as she did so. “Chief  _ Resident.  _ Not President. There’s no ‘p.’”

“But I bet Momma would like it if people called her ‘Chief President,’” Mildred remarked with a wink in Annie’s direction.

At this, Annie and Mildred both shared a chuckle at Kerry’s expense. Kerry just shook her head, which led Annie to run back towards the living room and throw herself onto her mother in a hug (but what felt to Kerry like an attack given the flailing aluminum rods that accompanied it).

Kerry hugged Annie for a long moment before the girl wriggled her way out of her mother’s grip. But Kerry raised her hands to the girl’s face and pulled her head back down for a kiss before fully relinquishing her.

“Momma, can I go play outside?” Annie asked, brushing her auburn hair out of her face after straightening back up. 

“For a little while,” Kerry replied. “But then you need to come inside and take a bath before bed.”

Annie didn’t bother to give a verbal reply before turning and heading off down the hallway towards the door off of Kerry’s bedroom that led into their (small) backyard.

The two women watched her go for a moment before Kerry let out a sigh. She pulled her own new crutch towards her and immediately changed the height settings without bothering to measure herself the way she had for Annie. (She hadn’t grown at all in the last eighteen years, so she doubted she’d need to change anything from the old one to the new one.)

She tested the new one for only a brief moment before deeming it satisfactory and starting to clean up the cardboard and plastic from the package.

“It’s like buying the family new shoes before the first day of school,” Mildred commented as Kerry took a seat on the couch next to her. 

“Well, we did that too,” Kerry replied with a small shrug. 

Mildred smiled, but Kerry just heaved another sigh before curling up with her head on her mother’s lap. 

“Let me guess,” Mildred said quietly as she began stroking Kerry’s hair. “You’re bothered by how excited she was.”

“I’m bothered by the color,” Kerry muttered, rubbing her hands over her face. “It was  _ not _ that bright in the catalogue.”

“What? Were you expecting her to make a  _ sensible  _ color decision, like, say, silver and black?” 

At this, Kerry raised her head just enough to look up at her mother and frown. But when Mildred just shrugged, Kerry laid her head back down. 

“Well, dear, I’ll remind you that she’s a five-year-old. And five-year-olds do not  _ make  _ sensible decisions. Including you. Trust me. If you had been able to get colorful crutches when you were five, you would have been just as thrilled as she was.”

This did not seem to reassure Kerry the way Mildred had intended, as the older woman could feel her daughter shake her head against her leg.

“She’s going to attract attention.”

“Inevitably. But likely not as much as whatever of her classmates has those shoes that light up.” When Kerry huffed and sat up, Mildred let out a sigh of her own. “Kerry, are you really  _ that  _ upset that the girl likes her neon green crutches? I’d have thought you’d be pleased.”

“I’m not upset that she likes them,” Kerry said quickly. “I’m… I’m just…”

“You’re just what?”

There was a long moment of silence as Kerry considered how she wanted to answer. 

“I just keep thinking that she’s only going to like the color until people start teasing her for it.”

There was another long moment of silence before Mildred replied. 

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

Kerry looked at Mildred just in time to see her shake her head and stand up. 

“What?”

“ _ That’s _ what’s bothering you?”

“Yes. Kids are going to notice and they’re going to make fun of her.”

“They  _ could _ make fun of her,” Mildred pushed back. “That’s not a guarantee.”

“Mom, I’m speaking from experience,” Kerry said, her fear and frustration (and deep-seated sorrow) rising in her chest. 

“I know you are, dear. But that’s  _ your  _ experience. Not hers,” Mildred said as those same emotions rose in her. “And yet you act like it’s already happened to her.”

“Mom, it would be irresponsible of me to let her go out into the world without warning her what people are going to do-”

“Yes, it would be irresponsible not to warn her, dear, but you don’t have to act like it’s an inevitability.”

For a long moment, the two women just stared at each other. Then, Mildred’s brow furrowed as she fixed Kerry with a concerned look.

“Sometimes, my love, I feel like you look at her with the same shame that able-bodied parents who’ve never dealt with disability look at their disabled children.”

For a moment, Kerry just stared. Then, she recoiled as if she’d been slapped in the face.

“Mom.”

“I’m sorry, dear, but I call it as I see it and that’s what I see,” Mildred said, her tone frank but still apologetic. “I just… Sometimes I just get reminded of those people who’d come up to us when you were young and say things like, ‘Oh, it’s such a shame’ or ‘I feel so bad for her’ or ‘What a pity.’ With all that shame we worked so hard never to teach you to think.”

Mildred shook her head. 

“You know what I see in Annie? I see you. Before the world got to you. Because your father and I never taught you shame. The  _ world _ taught you that. We did everything we could to never teach you that, and to be perfectly honest dear, it makes me feel a bit like I failed you in that matter when I watch you teach it to her.”

Another slap, another recoil. 

“Mom… Mom, you know I would  _ never  _ say anything like that to her,” Kerry said in what came out as both a statement and a plea. “You  _ know  _ that.”

Mildred looked at her for a long moment and then let out a long, deep breath.

“No, you’d never say it out loud,” Mildred admitted. “But you say it with your eyes.”


	2. Prelude #2: Lewis

Susan inhaled deeply at the sound of keys outside the door. 

There was a brief moment of silence before the lock clicked and the door opened, accompanied by footsteps.

 _Click_.

The room flooded with light as Susan turned on the lamp on the side table next to her.

Chloe recoiled at the light, blinking hard as she shrugged off her coat and threw it on a nearby chair. Then, to Susan’s surprise (and frustration), she let out a chuckle. 

“Waiting in the dark? How _dramatic_ of you, Suze.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Chloe said as she kicked off her shoes. 

“Chloe, it is two o’clock in the morning,” Susan stated flatly, though tension was rising in her shoulders and her tone. “You were due back hours ago. So, I’m going to repeat myself: Where the hell have you been?”

Chloe rolled her eyes. 

“I was at a job interview.”

Susan raised an eyebrow. 

“Try again.”

“I’m not kidding, Suze.”

“What kind of job interview would require you to stay out until two in the morning?” Susan asked, crossing her arms as she rose from her seat on the couch.

“One to be a bartender,” Chloe replied with another eyeroll. “They had me help out until closing. You know, to get the gist of things and stuff.”

Chloe crossed towards the sink in the kitchen for a glass of water, but kept an eye on her sister, who was now nodding slowly.

“Interviewing to be a bartender.” Susan cocked her head in question and narrowed her eyes. “Chloe, you _are_ aware that they don’t actually let you drink on the job when you’re a bartender, right?”

“I know that, Susan,” Chloe said, shooting Susan a look. “But I’m serious. This was a real job interview.”

There was a pause before Susan heaved a heavy sigh. 

“Chloe, you do know what I do for a living, right? And that I can’t stay up half the night waiting for you to come home without potentially jeopardizing twenty people’s lives tomorrow?”

“No one asked you to wait up for me, Suze. If you did, that was your own fault.”

“I _didn’t_ stay up,” Susan said, stepping towards her sister. “But when Suzie started crying because she needed changed and fed, I had to get up because you weren’t here.”

Chloe leaned against the kitchen counter. She paused as if considering this for a moment before she sighed. 

“If I get the job, I’ll try and arrange to work an early shift, okay?” she offered in a bit quieter of a tone than she’d used a second before. “But I’m serious, Susan. This was a _real_ interview. And I think I could have a real future in bartending.”

“And I think you have a real future in getting your daughter taken away from you, Chloe.”

It was not the first time that Chloe had heard these words in recent months, but it didn’t make them hurt any less.

“You know, Susan, I thought of all people, _you_ would be the one to actually have faith in me,” she said with more than a little bit of a bite in her tone. “But every time I try to do something right, it’s just more nagging and doubt.”

“Chloe, I _do_ have faith in you,” Susan said pleadingly, stepping forward again to cut Chloe off before she could disappear down the hallway. “But… But honestly, it feels like every day, you do things that make me _lose_ faith in you.”

“Which is just another way of saying you don’t believe in me.”

Susan opened her mouth to reply, but she paused for too long. But, even unspoken, the meaning of the pause was clear. 

Chloe just shook her head and made to push past Susan, but Susan grabbed her arm and turned her around. And then, as if physical contact would help her words sink in more, Susan held Chloe at arms length and took a deep breath.

“Chloe, I love you,” she said in a low, even voice. “I love you. And I love Suzie. And I _do_ have faith in you to be a good mother, but you have to work with me. And not just assume that I will always be here to look after Suzie when you’re not here. Because I _can’t_ be. I’ve got responsibility to more than just you and her. 

“And… And I don’t want it to sound like family doesn’t come first, but… _God_ , Chloe this is getting to be too much for me. You’re her mother, and when you do things like not come home on time, I can’t keep myself from assuming that something went terribly wrong or you’re hurt or dead. And you’re my sister. You’re my sister and I love you and I don’t want the first thing I think of is you in trouble, but you don’t give me any reason not to assume that.”

Susan continued to hold Chloe at arm’s length for a long moment until Chloe finally nodded. 

“I’ll try and do better,” Chloe said in a voice so low Susan almost had to strain to hear it. “And if doing better means not being a bartender, I’ll turn them down if they offer it.”

Susan wanted nothing more than to tell Chloe that a job offer was a job offer and that it was better than nothing, but the rational voice in her head kept her silent, even at the expense of her sister’s happiness. 

But the unhappiness derived from this conversation was short-lived. Or, at least, quickly brushed under the rug as a different kind of unhappiness appeared in Susan’s life in the form of a redheaded Chief Resident keen on making her life a living hell. 

However, even the new pain-in-the-ass present in Susan’s life could not completely erase the old pain-in-the-ass that was still managing to rile her up on occasion. 

“... And yes, she’s been doing much better lately, but it feels like in the last week or so, she’s been slipping back into the old ways. And I hate to think what that’s going to mean for Suzie.” Susan leaned forward against the desk and set her chin in her hand. She heaved a sigh. “And the worst part about it is that sometimes when I think about her, I get so angry that I actually consider homicide.”

At the last part of the sentence, Mark rolled his eyes and shook his head. When he went to respond, he dropped his voice so only Susan could hear him. 

“Look, Susan. It was _my_ decision to hire Kerry and I stand by it. I’m sorry if you two aren’t getting along, but it’s not going to change.”

Susan stared at him for a moment before raising her eyebrows. 

“Well, if you were _listening_ , Mark, you would have known that I wasn’t talking about Kerry. I was talking about _Chloe._ But thank you for proving my point about her too.”

“What’s going on?” a male voice asked curiously from somewhere off to their left.

Mark and Susan both looked up as Doug sidled up to them at the desk. 

“Oh, you know. Just trying to decide if I’m going to strangle Chloe tonight at dinner,” Susan said with a shrug. “That is if she even _comes_ to dinner. Which is not a guarantee.”

Doug smirked and leaned closer towards Susan. He too dropped his voice. 

“Well, if you’re in the mood for strangling, you sure there isn’t anyone else who might make your list?” Doug said with a side-eyed glance towards a certain redheaded Chief Resident spoke to a patient down the hall.

 _“Doug,”_ Mark said in a warning tone.

Doug, however, just shrugged and raised his hands defensively. 

“I’m just saying. If Susan’s going to go to jail for aggrevated murder, she might as kill two birds with one stone.”

“Okay, first of all, what makes you think I’m going to get caught?” Susan asked, narrowing her eyes. “And second of all, I would _never_ kill anyone with a stone. If I’m going to kill someone, I’m going to do it with my bare hands. While facing them, so they know _exactly_ who did it in the moment before they pass out.”

Not even Mark could help but chuckle at the mental image her description created (and that her tone sounded so serious that it might not just be sarcasm after all). 

“Susan, you wouldn’t get away with it considering you just told us what your plans were,” Doug pointed out. 

“Maybe. But I’ve got enough shit on both of you to keep you both quiet,” Susan said with a pleasant (if warning) smile.

“Yeah, right. You’ve got nothing on us,” Doug said, rolling his eyes. “You’re too nice for that, Susan.”

“Mm-hmm. And believing that will be your downfall.”

Susan didn’t even have time to appreciate the look on Doug’s face before a high-pitched voice from behind her asked, “Susan, do you have a moment?”

Tensing (though she did not yet have a reason to), Susan turned to find Kerry approaching her, a chart in hand. 

“What can I do for you, Kerry?” Susan asked, willing it not to sound _too_ much like she was speaking through gritted teeth.

“You can tell me where the rest of your write-up is,” Kerry stated as she held up the chart to Susan. “It cuts off half-way through.”

“It’s on the back of the first page,” Susan said with a shrewd smile.

“And how am I supposed to know that?” 

“Because it says right there in parentheses ‘See Back,’” Susan said, poking the aloft chart hard. “Which would indicate to most people to check the back of the page.”

Kerry turned the chart around to read it again. Susan got a small amount of satisfaction as the other woman’s brow furrowed slightly at the direction she apparently had missed during her first review. 

But the satisfaction did not last long as it took only a brief moment before Kerry gave a small shrug and looked back up to her in her usual superior fashion.

“Thank you for pointing that out. But it still should be on the first page,” Kerry stated simply. “Perhaps you should work on writing smaller.”

“Writing smaller? Kerry, if I wrote any smaller, you’d need a microscope just to read the H&P.”

“Then, perhaps you should work on condensing your summaries,” Kerry suggested. “Dr. Morgenstern approved my list of standardized shorthand and abbreviations. You’ll find a copy of it in your mailbox.”

Susan readied a biting remark, but something in the raised eyebrow she got from Kerry as she opened her mouth told her that it was expected. So, instead, she took a deep breath and gave Kerry the most sincere smile (read: grimace) she could muster.

“Wonderful. I’ll be sure to take a look at it.”

“Good. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know,” Kerry said with a small smile of her own before she handed the chart off to Jerry. “And don’t be so quick to write my suggestions off, Susan. There’s always room for improvement.”

Susan had to bite her tongue not just metaphorically but also physically as Kerry turned away from her and exited from behind the desk to go see her next patient. When she turned back to Mark and Doug, Doug made pointed eye contact with her and shrugged. 

“I’ll turn my back if you don’t want any witnesses.”

Susan considered it for a moment, but then looked at her watch and shook her head. 

“No. I’m off,” she said firmly. “I’m going to go upstairs and pick Suzie up and then go home and pretend that this place doesn’t exist. Okay?”

Doug just shrugged before Susan bade him and Mark both goodbye and headed for the elevators. Once sure she was gone and out of earshot, Mark then took a step closer to Doug.

“You don’t think she _really_ has shit on us, do you?”

Susan adjusted Suzie in her arms before pushing the door to the parking lot open. 

The asphalt was wet, meaning it must have rained at some point while she’d been inside working. In the growing darkness of the night, the puddles reflected the light of the hospital in gentle waves.

She had just unlocked the passenger side door and pulled it open when a voice called out for her. 

“Suzie! Hey, Suzie! Hey!”

Susan turned as Chloe reached the other side of the chain link fence surrounding the parking lot. Behind her, standing next to a waiting car was a thin woman Susan didn’t recognize.

“Chloe?” she asked as she approached the fence. “Who are you with?”

“Oh, that’s my friend Ruth,” Chloe replied, turning to wave at the thin woman. “Hi, Ruth!”

As Chloe turned back to her, giggling, the reality of this strange encounter struck Susan like a shower of ice water. 

“Oh, _God._ You’re loaded.”

“Oh, come on,” Chloe said, giggling as she threw her head back.

_“Chloe-”_

“Look,” Chloe said as sincerely as she could. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“What are you on?” Susan demanded (to no avail).

“I’m going on a trip-”

“The hell you are.”

“The flea market, Suzie. You can make a _fortune_ selling old stuff-”

“Just stay there, okay,” Susan ordered. “I’m-I’m gonna come around, alright?”

Susan took a few steps towards the fence gate, but Chloe followed her.

“No, _no_. Suzie, I can’t. We’ve gotta go.”

Susan grabbed the fence gate and tugged, but it was padlocked shut. 

_“Dammit,”_ she cursed as she gave another futile pull. “Chloe, you are not abandoning this baby.”

“I’ll be _back_ ,” Chloe insisted. “I just gotta make us some money so I can buy us a house.”

“Chloe, what are you doing? Don’t! Don’t do this!

For a moment, Susan’s heart unclenched just slightly as Chloe stopped backing away. But as soon as she opened her mouth to plead more, she and Chloe made eye contact with each other.

“I’m _dying_ inside, Suzie,” Chloe said in a low but unmistakably broken voice. “I’ve gotta go.”

“No, I know, Chloe. It’s fine,” Susan said quickly as Chloe started backing away again.

“Don’t be mad, please.”

“It’s okay,” Susan shouted, the pleading as unmistakable in her voice as the desperation was in her sister’s.

“I’ve just… I wanna do something right, okay?”

“It’s okay- No, I’m not! Chloe, it’s okay!”

At the sound of the shouting, Little Suzie had begun to let out small cries which were only likely to grow in frequency and intensity as the shouting continued. But her cries went unnoticed as Big Suzie was letting out cries of her own.

“Bye, baby!” Chloe called out with a small wave towards Little Suzie. Her cries too were growing more present in her words. “Mama loves you!”

But these went unnoticed too as Susan just kept calling after Chloe, shouting that it was okay and willing to God with every ounce of her being that Chloe to know that she meant it.

All of Susan’s will didn’t seem to be enough, though, as Chloe just climbed into the car and turned it on. As the engine revved to life, Chloe looked back once more at the sound of Little Suzie’s cries and called out one more affirmation to her daughter that she loved her before shifting into drive and pulling away. 

Susan continued to call after her for several minutes, but there was no point. 

Chloe was gone. And as the reality of this thought fell upon her in the darkness that only grew darker and lonelier by the second, Susan could only be sure of one thing: She was well and truly fucked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It's me again, back with another family AU because the world is ending and it's bringing me joy.
> 
> I can't say what really inspired all of this other than I was playing around with some stuff from the ["unexpected circumstances"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901180) universe, specifically Charlie and her hip. And (spoilers if you haven't read the other one), of course, Charlie's hip ends up fine, but I was imagining what would have happened if it didn't and how that would affect Kerry specifically. I also got to thinking about how her relationship with her mom would fare in a universe where she 1) was alive when Kerry had a kid and 2) watched her daughter raising a disabled child of her own. 
> 
> And while obviously this is an AU, I can say that most of what has changed is stuff I came up with for Kerry's backstory that I explained in "uc" and ["The Summer of '77.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554961)" It's still canon though, that Kerry was married at some point prior to season seven and (depending on what you believe in terms of the timeline of Kerry's parents' deaths thanks to her inconsistent storytelling in canon) her mother _could_ have been alive when Kerry graduated medical school. 
> 
> And, of course, if we're going to set this at the beginning of Kerry's time at County, I would not be able to deny that I've got to involve Susan and Suzie in some way. This is partly due to the fact that no character (or person) exists in a vacuum and a story can never be about just _one_ character, it is also due to the fact that in the past year, I've written 187,613 words of a universe where Susan and Kerry fall in love in tandem with Susan adopting Suzie. Given that much thought, time, and volume of work, I can easily say that everything I come up with for _ER_ fanfiction plays into that.
> 
> I'm sorry in advance if this concept is going to feel repetitive to you, but I can promise that the tweaks in this AU will help make the story feel fresh and new (even if you think you know what's coming). 
> 
> I'm an essential worker, so content updating _may_ be a bit sporadic, but this is the most inspired I've been about writing during this entire time of quarantine. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you all are doing well and staying healthy! Until next time.


	3. Uncharted Territory

Michael glanced down at his watch and then back up. At this rate, the flowers in his hand were going to wilt and possibly even decompose before the desk clerk in front of him noticed his presence.

“Um… hello?”

“Hi,” the young woman replied in a bored voice as she continued to file her nails. 

“Uh, well… I was hoping that you could help me,” Michael said, leaning his head down in an attempt to get her attention. “I’m looking for Dr. Weaver?”

“On purpose?”

“Yes.”

At the sincerity with which he responded, the young woman looked up, first with just her eyes and then with her whole head as she took in the tall, middle-aged man in front of her. 

After a long moment looking him over from his dark curly hair that was starting to gray around the ears to his pressed button down and striped tie to the small bouquet of yellow flowers in his hand, she leaned forward and smiled.

“Are those for her?” the woman asked, pointing to the flowers.

“Yes.”

The woman laced her fingers on the desk in front of her and leaned forward even more. Given her low-cut blouse and the way she pressed her arms together as she did, her cleavage was nearly on full display.

“And have you met her before?” the woman asked hopefully, wondering perhaps if the mysterious and magisterial Chief Resident might have been set up on a blind date (that she could snag for herself). 

“Yes.”

The young woman sighed and sat back in her chair. 

_ “Dammit.” _ She picked up her magazine again and flicked it open. “Try the trauma room. Down the hall to your left.”

“Thank you,” Michael said in as gracious a voice as he could muster without giving her ideas. 

If the tile of the trauma rooms down the hall wasn’t enough to clue him in that he was going in the right direction, he’d have figured it out for sure upon hearing a particularly annoyed-looking female resident stalking away from the trauma room to tell a bald man in green scrubs that she had to wear her forced and pained-looking smile because she was about to go upstairs to see her baby niece and wearing her actual expression was sure to make the baby cry.

He continued on until he reached the trauma room, which was now nearly empty save for a few nurses cleaning things up and Kerry, who was pointing something out on an x-ray to a young White med student with brown hair. Both were still donning their yellow trauma gowns and goggles. 

“Knock, knock,” Michael said, knocking on the doorframe before hesitantly poking his head into the room. 

Those inside all turned or glanced up to figure out who bothered to say “Knock, knock” to a room with two open doors (and a significant amount of bodily fluids on the floor). 

When Kerry spotted him, he smiled and gave a small wave. The med student standing next to her began to wave back before stopping himself when he realized the wave was not meant for him.

“Anyways, you can go on back upstairs, Carter,” she said to the med student. “And good catch on that. You saved us a lot of time.”

Michael watched the med student give Kerry a cheerful smile before he stripped off his trauma gown and goggles and started for the elevators. 

“What are you doing here?” Kerry asked, raising her eyebrows at Michael’s smile. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” he reassured. “I just wanted to come see how you were doing. How the new job was going. You know. All that stuff.”

“Mm-hmm.”

She eyed him with skepticism for a moment before sliding her crutch from her arm and handing it to him. He held it for a moment as she removed and disposed of her trauma gown, but when she reached for it back, he handed her both it and the flowers.

She took them, her already-furrowed brow furrowing even further. But before she said anything else, she nodded him to follow her down the hall to somewhere more private (that was well away from the eavesdropping ears of nurses).

“Michael, what’s really going on?” she asked once they were alone in a secluded corner down the hall. “What are these for?”

Michael closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. When he opened his eyes, he fixed her with the same pleading look Annie had given her this morning when she was told she couldn’t have a second banana at breakfast.

“Can I keep Annie until Sunday?” 

Kerry blinked. Then, she shrugged. 

“Yeah, that’s fine with me. But you could have just called to ask that. You didn’t have to come over here and butter me up.”

“I’m not buttering you up,” he said quickly. But at the look he received in reply, he gave in with a shrug. “Okay. I am  _ kind of  _ buttering you up.”

“Why?”

Michael took another deep breath, but this time it was accompanied by a long pause.

“I’m seeing someone. His name is Adam Klein. He teaches high school geometry. And… And I want to introduce him to Annie this weekend.”

Kerry nodded slowly, which only increased the speed with which Michael spoke.

“He’s a really great guy. He’s really kind and funny and patient. And he’s really great with kids,” Michael said, his tone almost imploring. “And, you know, he’s safe. I mean he’s a teacher. They wouldn’t have let him teach if he wasn’t-”

“Michael, relax,” Kerry said, holding up a hand. “I trust you.”

“You trust me?”

“Yes. I trust your judgement,” Kerry replied as if it wasn’t a question. “If you think he’s a good guy, then I believe you.”

Michael clearly must have been ready to convince her further as he just stared at her for a second before exhaling in relief.

“Good, good,” he said with a sigh. “Thank you, Kerry.”

“Of course.”

Michael smiled and muttered another word of thanks. 

“We’ve been seeing each other for about three months now,” he explained quietly. “And I know that it hasn’t been that long, but I wouldn’t ask about introducing him to Annie if I didn’t think this could… if it wasn’t going well.”

The care in Michael’s voice with which he spoke of Adam was one of the things Kerry missed most about not living with him. Though they’d amicably separated almost two years ago when he came out and they both knew that their divorce had been for the best, she missed listening from the next room as he and Annie conspired together in the moments before he tucked her in at night.

“I’m happy for you,” she said with a small smile. “How did you two meet?”

“Oh, you know,” Michael said slowly, glancing up at the ceiling to avoid eye contact. “The way, uh, normal people meet.”

“Michael,” Kerry said firmly, narrowing her eyes, “how did you meet him?”

Michael gave a sheepish shrug. 

“I removed his appendix?”

“You’re dating a former patient?” Kerry asked incredulously. 

“From-from months ago. Long before he asked me out. And it was him, you know, who did the asking. Not me,” he said a tad defensively. “Though I did kind of want to ask him out right after the surgery. When I visited him in recovery post-op, he was still kind of loopy from the anesthesia and was waxing philosophic about circles. I didn’t really know what he was talking about but he looked really cute while he was doing it.”

Kerry let out a small chuckle. 

“He sounds nice,” she remarked before raising an eyebrow. “But if you keep her this weekend, I want her for Christmas.”

“Oh, done,” Michael said, nodding earnestly.

He looked very serious for a moment before they both chuckled. 

“Speaking of which, I take it this Adam of yours is a nice Jewish boy?”

“He is actually. I’m hoping that it’ll help when I, uh… whenever I get around to introducing him to my parents,” Michael said, nodding again. “That’s actually part of how I’m planning on introducing him to Annie. I invited him to our temple for Shabbat service this week, so I figure that’s where she’ll meet him.”

At the way Kerry’s brow furrowed, Michael grew worried.

“What? You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s a fine idea. I’m just not sure how wise it is to introduce Annie to someone and then expect her to sit there and be quiet for any period of time.”

Michael paused before his brow furrowed.

“Oh, yeah. That’s not going to work.” The longer he considered the thought, the more concerned he grew. “Maybe I should wait until afterwards to introduce her.” 

“It’s up to you. But I’d recommend coming up with an alternative unless you’re comfortable getting dirty looks because you’re shushing her every ten seconds.”

Michael chuckled, but nevertheless acknowledged the truth of the statement with a shrug. 

They turned back in the direction of the trauma room and began walking back towards the desk. Michael continued to look around, taking the department in with a mildly impressed look on his face. 

“So, what do you think about the new ER so far?”

“Not bad,” Kerry said with a small shrug. “It could use a bit of work, though.”

“Well, luckily you’re here, right?” Michael said in a cheerful tone. 

Kerry chuckled and shook her head. 

“You really think that?” she asked rhetorically. But when he nodded, she grinned and said, “You’re always so supportive, Michael.”

“Well, I try,” he said with a shrug. 

“And not just because you’re scared of me?”

“Not  _ just _ because of that, no.”

“That’s good to know,” she remarked with a shrug. “Well, when you get back across town, make sure to call the house and tell my mom to put another outfit in Annie’s bag before she brings her over.”

“You’re not bringing her?” Michael asked, frowning as they turned the corner at the end of the hallway. 

“Well, I plan to. Barring any unforeseen circumstances. But if I get held up, my mom will bring her.”

Michael nodded before pausing in front of the Admit Desk. Well, a few feet to the  _ right  _ of the Admit Desk. (So he didn’t have to make eye contact with the Desk Clerk).

“Hopefully I’ll see you later. And if not, I’ll see you Sunday.”

There was a brief moment where Michael stepped forward as if to hug her, but the fact that they were standing in the middle of Kerry’s workplace seemed to stop him. So, instead, he just bade her goodbye and left out the Ambulance Bay doors. 

He hadn’t been gone for more than a second before Randi leaned forward as Kerry started towards the lounge.

“Dr. Weaver, who  _ was _ that?”

Kerry fought to roll her eyes at the excitement in Randi’s voice.

“My ex-husband.”

Randi nodded slowly. Kerry imagined she could hear the gears turning in the young woman’s head. And sure enough…

“So, does that mean he’s single?”

Kerry chuckled and then found herself letting out an unexpected sigh. 

“Apparently not,” she replied. “And, also, he’s gay.”

For the second time in fifteen minutes, Randi let out a disappointed huff and sat back in her chair. 

This time, Kerry  _ did _ roll her eyes before continuing on into the lounge to stow the flowers in her purse.But when she walked inside, she was not alone.

Susan Lewis was pacing back and forth in front of the fridge, wringing her hands in seeming desperation. Mark sat on the couch watching her with concern. Neither seemed to notice when Kerry crossed to where she’d stowed her purse earlier that day.

“Did you call the police?” Mark asked, his eyes following her as she walked back and forth. 

_ “Yes,” _ Susan said urgently. “I was at the police station all morning, but they won’t do anything. I think… I made the mistake of telling them that she was high when she left, so now they think she’s just some druggie who does this sort of thing.”

Mark paused for a moment before giving a small (sheepish) shrug of acknowledgement.

“Well…”

“Yeah, I  _ know,” _ Susan snapped, pausing her pacing to look at him before she started pacing again. “But she’s been doing well! She hasn’t used since before Suzie was born. She’s been going to meetings. She’s been staying clean-”

Susan stopped suddenly, catching both Mark and Kerry’s attention. 

“Oh my God. What if she ODs? She hasn’t used in over a year. She doesn’t have any tolerance. What if she goes to shoot up and-and-”

The thought alone overwhelmed Susan so much that she stopped pacing altogether and instead just collapsed onto the couch opposite Mark and buried her head in her hands. 

“Susan, did you sleep at all last night?” Mark asked cautiously as Susan dragged her fingers down her face.

“What do  _ you _ think, Mark?” 

Mark gave another timid shrug as Susan reburied her face in her hands.

“I don’t know what to  _ dooo,” _ Susan groaned, extending the last vowel. “I don’t even know where to start.”

Given that whatever had happened was bad enough to warrant this level of anxiety from Susan Lewis, who Kerry had so far gathered was a fairly level-headed person (if a little bit stubborn with regards to authority),  _ and _ had prompted to come her to come all the way to County looking for help and a place to vent, Kerry couldn’t help but be curious.

“What happened?”

Both Mark and Susan turned to look at her, their brows rising as they recognized her presence. 

Susan was the first to respond. She shook her head and waved her away.

“It’s nothing,” she said quickly, still looking at Mark. But then she sighed and looked up at Kerry. “My sister disappeared in the middle of the night.”

“She disappeared?” Kerry asked, not able to hide her surprise.

“Yeah. I picked up Suzie last night and as I was leaving, Chloe showed up, high as a kite, and told me she was going on a trip,” Susan explained in a tired voice. “And I tried to get her stop, but she left anyway. Effectively abandoning Suzie with me.”

Kerry stared for a moment. Then, her brow furrowed. 

“Is… Is Suzie alright?”

“What? Oh, yeah. She’s fine. She’s over there sleeping.”

Susan waved a hand towards the corner, where Suzie lay in her car seat. Kerry nodded, her own slight anxiety at the knowledge that Chloe had left lessening somewhat at the sight of the baby, who was both indeed fine and also asleep.

She looked at Suzie for a moment before glancing back down at Susan. 

“And…” Kerry took a deep breath. “Are  _ you _ okay?”

Susan, who did not notice Kerry’s hesitation as she broached the professional into the personal, just sighed wearily. She gave a small shrug. 

“Yeah. I mean  _ no _ . But yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good. And have you called DCFS yet?”

At the suggestion, Susan visibly flinched.

“No, of course not,” she replied quickly. “I don’t want them to take her away-”

“No, no. That’s not what I meant,” Kerry said, shaking her head. “I meant to file for temporary custody. Of Suzie.”

There was a brief pause before Susan frowned. 

“Temporary custody?”

“Yes. If you think your sister’s not coming back, you’ll want to make sure you can still take care of her. That way, if something were to happen, you’d be able to sign paperwork on her behalf.”

“But if I call DCFS and tell her that Chloe left, won’t they put her in foster care?”

Susan’s voice sounded firm, but Kerry had the feeling that it was more out of sincere concern than antagonistic intent.

Kerry shook her head. 

“No. They won’t put a child in foster care if there’s a viable kinship care option. Which is you,” Kerry explained. “Plus, it’ll be in your best interest if you have a case manager from DCFS should you want to file for permanent custody. If your sister were not to come back.”

There was another long pause before Susan looked back at Kerry, her eyes narrowed. 

“And if I call them, they’re not going to take her away from me.”

Kerry shook her head again, which led Susan to nod, slowly at first and then faster. But then she glanced back at Kerry, her eyes still narrowed. 

“Why do you know all of this?”

It was Kerry’s turn to pause. Then, she just shrugged.

“I just know.”

Whether or not Susan believed that this was all stuff Kerry just happened to know, she did not say. 

It didn’t matter to her, really. All that mattered was she had a plan. She had steps she could follow; one-by-one that could get her from today to tomorrow, and then from tomorrow to the next day. 

But when she stepped out of the Department of Child and Family Services office the next day, her pager went off just as she looked at the paperwork granting her temporary guardianship of a three-month-old infant. 

Massive pileup with multiple casualties (and not one caused by the three-month-olds very full diaper) 

As she loaded Suzie’s car seat into her car, a new thought started bouncing around her head. 

It was similar to the one that occurred to her last night, but, in her opinion at least, much better reflected this new uncharted territory she was wading through.

What the  _ hell  _ was she thinking?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Hope you're doing well.
> 
> Sorry for the delay in posting chapter three. I had gotten a good way throughwriting a chapter only to decide that I wanted to postpone it until the next chapter for pacing reasons. This chapter didn't take long to come to me in terms of ideas of what I wanted to do with it, but I've had Zoom meetings and FaceTime chats that have eaten up a lot of my evening free time the last couple days. 
> 
> But here we introduce Michael! If you've read my other works in this fandom, you likely already know who Michael is. BUT even if you are familiar with him in the prequel and his small appearances in A Forest of Trees, you're going to learn a _lot_ more about him in this. And if you _haven't_ read any of my other works, I think you're in for a treat. In a note from the prequel, I described him as an all-around Very Nice Young Man and in this he's an all-around Very Nice Middle-Aged Man. 
> 
> I will say though that part of delay was due to my complaining to my fiance how painful this early stuff (namely the next chapter) is to write because so much of it involved Kerry and Susan arguing. I'm so used to writing them as happily married that to go back to the beginning where they don't like each other, or, well, _farther_ back than I really ever did in the "uc" AU is paining me. It's gonna all work out, but it's going to be painful until it does. 
> 
> Along that line, as I plan things out, I will just say that there's a lot of changes to canon that I came up with for "unexpected circumstances" that will make a reappearance in this AU. They will all be told and imagined in a new way given the new context and circumstances, but don't be surprised if say, for example, you read stuff later on and think, "Wait, didn't she already use the Carol's-free-clinic-is-going-to-save-the-ER-money plot line already?" The answer will be yes (and not just because that plot line is where I can flex my professional muscles). However, even though they're similar, they are still going to happen differently and will be told in a new and different way. ALSO, though it wouldn't come for a long while, yesterday I wrote the single most painful scene I have ever written in my life for this fic. There's much to get through before we ever get to it, but I legitimately sobbed for an hour about it. 
> 
> Anyways. Thanks for reading and I hope that my warnings don't turn you off for what's to come. 
> 
> Until next time.


	4. Truth and Consequences

Annie frowned in the mirror as her mother dragged a comb through her hair. 

“But why _not?”_

“Because, honey, there’s nothing to see.” Kerry parted Annie’s hair down the middle and started dividing each side into thirds to French braid. “It’s the same as the old one.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. Emergency departments all kind of look the same. It’s not different. Now, please lean your head back.”

“But it _is,”_ Annie pushed back. “It’s in a new place and there’s new people. And I want to meet them!”

“Please lean your head back.”

Annie leaned her head back and fixed her mother with an upside-down glower.

“If I lean my head back, can we go see your new ER?”

“No, but by asking that, you did it anyway.” 

Annie’s glower turned into an upside-down scowl at this unfortunate loophole. Kerry chuckled and bent down to kiss her on the forehead before straightening up and starting to braid the left side of Annie’s hair.

“I just don’t get why you want to see it so much,” Kerry remarked at Annie’s sigh. “I promise you it’s not that different.”

“But there’s different doctors there. And that means it’s different. And I knew all the doctors at your old hospital. I want to meet the new ones.”

“Well, that’s different, dear. All of the doctors at the old hospital knew who you were before you were even born.”

“And what? I can’t meet the new ones because I’m already born?”

 _“I_ don’t even know the new ones yet, Annie,” Kerry said as she picked up a hair tie from the counter and tied off one of the braids. 

“So, we can meet them together.”

Annie turned around in her chair and looked up at her mother.

 _“Please?_ Can’t I go for just five minutes?”

Kerry raised an eyebrow, which made the hope in Annie’s heart leap (as it was common knowledge that Kerry Weaver’s steel will was malleable by very few apart from certain redheaded half-Jewish five-year-olds).

“Five minutes?”

“Yeah. Five minutes,” Annie said, nodding fervently. “Just enough time to walk around and say hi to people. And then we can leave.”

“And when I say it’s time to leave, you won’t complain?” 

Annie nodded again. And when Kerry let out a deep breath, Annie knew she had her. 

“Alright fine. If you can promise me that you won’t complain when it’s time to leave, then I promise you can come see my new ER after school. Grandma can bring you and we’ll walk around. How’s that?”

The “What’s Grandma doing?” that Mildred asked as she appeared in the doorway of Annie’s bedroom was nearly drowned out by Annie’s cheers, but she still managed to get both their attention.

“Momma said that we can go see her new hospital today!” Annie informed her excitedly. “After school!”

As Kerry asked Annie to lean her head back again so she could braid the rest of her hair, she caught sight of Mildred’s raised brow in the mirror. Reminded of her mother’s fear of hospitals (and medicine in general), she gave Mildred a conciliatory nod.

“You don’t have to come inside.”

Susan flipped through the chart, but her heart nor her head were in it. It couldn’t be, to be honest, as too many thoughts were spinning through her head. 

When was Weaver going to appear out of thin air behind her next? How was Suzie doing upstairs? Was that new desk clerk judging her outfit or checking her out? (And did she like what she saw?)

Weaver’s tip on the whole DCFS thing had been helpful, but the moment Susan was back at work for her next shift, it was almost as if she’d forgotten about the entire thing. Weaver hadn’t even bothered to ask how it went before she started her round of critique and criticism. And, of course, patronization which came after getting chewed out by a pregnant teenage patient’s mother. 

Susan was just mourning the stress ball she had bought last night and then popped within two seconds of coming in to work this morning when Doug appeared at her side. 

“I’m still supportive of violence if you’re willing to reconsider,” he muttered. 

Susan rolled her eyes, but nonetheless felt a wave of relief was over her as she followed him towards the lounge.

At least it wasn’t _just_ her that was pissed off about this. Complaining to Mark was proving futile and when she’d casually mentioned (or had second to watch) Weaver’s behavior to the other residents, none of them seemed to receive the same level of hovering that she did. 

“There is no politically correct way to describe that woman,” Doug said as they entered the lounge. 

He continued on towards the fridge and, just now noticing how hungry and/or thirsty she was, Susan followed him. On her way, she passed by several nurses in pink scrubs chatting or looking at magazines in a few minutes of reprieve from the chaos of the ER. All except for Lily, who was talking on the phone near the door. 

“I’ll see if I can find her,” she said into the receiver before pulling it away from her ear and holding it to her chest. “Has anyone seen Dr. Weaver? Some surgeon from Mt. Sinai is calling for her.”

“Follow the trail of partially digested residents,” Doug called out from his place near the fridge.”

Lily said something to the man on the other end of the call before letting the phone drop so she could go find Dr. Weaver. A moment later, Randi poked her head in. 

“Dr. Lewis, childcare called. Should they give Suzie her noon bottle? It’s almost one.”

 _Dammit_ . She’d forgotten she’d asked to hold Suzie’s bottle (because God forbid she had _one_ second to run upstairs and feed her niece).

“She must be starving,” Susan groaned. “No, tell them to feed her. I’ll be up as soon as I can.”

Randi nodded and ducked back out. 

“You’re allowed to have a life,” Doug muttered to her as they sorted through some questionably-dated leftovers in the fridge.

“I’m waiting on some labs,” Susan replied in a dejected voice.

“Weaver has you playing her game. You think if you ace all the details and she’s gonna stop nitpicking?”

Susan paused and then let out a sigh. 

“Probably not.”

She turned away from the fridge, Diet Coke in hand, and took a seat on the couch. Behind her, Doug straightened up as he got into character. 

“You know, Susan,” he began in a high-pitched, haughty voice. “You didn’t put your Xs in the middle of the box.”

Susan couldn’t deny how silly the feedback sounded but how easily she could imagine getting it before the end of the day. The others around must have agreed as the titters and chuckles began. 

“I know it’s trivial, but could you say _sahntimeter_ instead of _centimeter_ ,” Doug continued to rising laughter. He spun around with a bit of a flourish. “Can you second guess _yourself_ sometimes instead of me always having to do it?”

There was another wave of laughter at the impromptu impression, but it only lasted for a moment before it evaporated and left behind an icy silence. 

At the sudden lack of sound, Susan, who had shaken her head at Doug’s antics, immediately looked back up at him in confusion. But his smile had faded at the sight of the figure watching from the hallway. 

Susan followed his line of sight and felt her blood run cold. 

Kerry was in the doorway, watching wide-eyed as Doug mocked her in front of almost every ER staff member. But, unless Susan was mistaken, the hurt shock on her face wasn’t so much a result of Doug’s performance as much as it was at the golf club he was holding like a cane in his right hand. 

At that moment, Susan was filled with sharp, hot shame, not from getting caught but because she was suddenly sure that everyone in the lounge was thinking the exact same thing: _“Oh shit. There goes my job.”_

The problem (or at least one of them) was that she was right. Everyone _was_ thinking that. But the bigger and more pressing problem was that there was one person in the room who was _not_ thinking that.

It took a long moment for Kerry to come to from her wide-eyed stare. When she finally did, she crossed to where the phone hung awaiting her arrival and hung up the call. She didn’t wait before turning back towards the door and leaving as wordlessly as she’d come. 

In her absence, the staff that had gathered in the lounge exchanged glances. Then, as if they were all in harmonious thought once more, they quickly dispersed, gazes averted and chatting kept to a minimum. 

Susan followed the group out. She stared at the floor and tried to think about Suzie, but she was sure that if she looked up, she was going to see Weaver reporting her to Mark. 

But when Susan saw Mark next following her brief excursion upstairs to hug Suzie, he seemed in his normal good spirits. 

She considered this a good sign, as, if Weaver had told on them, Mark would surely be pissed off on her behalf. 

Why couldn’t he be pissed off on _her_ behalf? Susan wondered. He was supposed to be her best friend. Why couldn’t he act like it? It wasn’t like she was asking a lot for him to _maybe_ look at things from her point of view once in a while.

But, as if God/ the Universe was paying attention to Susan’s wonderings, Mark _would_ get pissed off that afternoon. But instead of being pissed off with her or betraying her to take her enemy’s side, Susan found herself in the lounge alone with Weaver awaiting Mark to get pissed off at them both.

She hovered near the fridge while Weaver stood in front of a chair a few feet away. The heat from the argument only a few seconds ago was still burning in Susan’s chest, but she didn’t dare say anything out of fear that she might not control what came out of her mouth.

Neither she nor Kerry, it seemed, wanted to be the one to give in and sit down first. But, the moment Mark stormed in and ordered them to, they both found their seats rather quickly. 

“What just happened in front of that patient can _never_ happen again,” he stated firmly. “You two have to start working together.”

Susan looked pointedly at Kerry, but it went unnoticed as the Chief Resident continued to look at Mark.

“I depend on both of you too much.” Mark inhaled deeply. “I’m to blame for this situation.”

 _You’re damn right,_ Susan thought as she looked back at him.

But the moment she looked up at him, he looked at Kerry.

“I haven’t backed you up, Kerry, on some of the more unpleasant aspects of your job, and I may have left the impression that I don’t support the work you’re doing. So…” He turned to look at Susan. “I am behind Kerry one hundred percent. If you disagree with anything she’s doing, assume that she’s acting with my approval.”

Before Susan could respond, Mark turned on Kerry. 

“ _But,_ ” he continued. “If this department hinders any resident from doing their best, then as Chief, you have to respond.”

He inhaled deeply again and then clapped his hands together. He looked back and forth between them both.

“Any questions?” Both women shook their heads. “That’s it.

Susan was up and out the door before Kerry had even gotten up.

When she turned to go down the hall back towards Admit and try and salvage what was left of her shift, she found Doug waiting. He had changed out of his scrubs and coat and into a dress shirt and pants. His untied tie hung around his shoulders. 

“Weaver in there?” he asked, nodding towards the lounge. When Susan nodded, he sighed. “We should probably apologize for, uh… Well, you know.”

That angry heat in Susan’s chest flared again. 

She didn’t _want_ to apologize to Weaver. She wanted Weaver to apologize to _her_ . Why did _one_ stupid joke warrant an apology but _weeks_ of unending professional torment didn’t?

But no sooner than the words “Why should we?” left her mouth before she regretted it. 

She wasn’t stupid. She knew why this warranted an apology. And, luckily for her, Doug seemed to understand, as instead of trying to explain why or even giving her a look, he just sighed.

A moment later, the door to the lounge opened and Kerry stepped out into the hall. When she turned in the direction of the desk, she spotted Susan and Doug waiting for her. Immediately, she rolled her eyes and started to make as if she was going to turn and walk in the other direction.

“Um, I’d like to apologize for what happened earlier today,” Susan said in a carefully controlled tone. 

“Uh, it was inexcusable and I am sorry,” Doug chimed in. 

Mark watched the scene in confusion, unsure what had prompted the apologies (or the hesitation in accepting them on Kerry’s part).

“Uh… apology accepted.”

Kerry gave Susan and Doug a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes that ended up dissipating the moment she turned and started in the opposite direction.

That was it? Publicly ridiculing her in front of nearly all of their colleagues and all she got was a begrudging apology? 

An apology was better than nothing, a voice in her head told her. She didn’t get an apology when the same thing happened to her at the library when she was sixteen. 

How could it have happened _again?_ In two seconds, she had gone from thirty-four-year-old resident physician standing in front of her staff and colleagues to sixteen-year-old group project member being laughed at by her peers. In exactly the same way too, with the one-two punch of mocking both her and her disability.

Just thinking about it made her head hurt. But she decided that standing in a bathroom stall for ten minutes trying to keep her breathing steady like she had done earlier was not enough this time and opted instead for fresh air. 

She stepped out the Ambulance Bay doors and made for one of the benches. She had just sat down and let out a deep breath she didn’t know she had been holding in when she heard a familiar voice calling out to her.

“Momma! Hey, Momma!”

Kerry looked around for a moment before she spotted Annie and her mother waving at her from the sidewalk. She’d barely had the chance to process what she was seeing before Annie was in front of her, nearly bouncing up and down on her toes in her excitement. 

“What-” Kerry blinked. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re here to see your new hospital!” Annie replied. “You said that Grandma could bring me after I got done with school so we could see it.”

“And by ‘we,’ she means you two are going to see it and I’m going to sit out here,” Mildred clarified as she caught up to them.”

Kerry looked between her and Annie in shock, the promises made this morning forgotten in everything that had happened since.

“No,” she said finally, shaking her head. “No, we can’t- We can’t do it today.”

Annie immediately stopped moving. She looked up at Kerry with a look of deep concern on her young face. 

“Why not?” she asked in a tone so full of disappointment it nearly made Kerry choke up.

“Yes, dear,” Mildred agreed in a low voice. She took a step closer to Kerry and frowned. “Why not?”

Kerry’s mouth worked wordlessly for a second. 

“It’s just not gonna work today. There’s… There’s too much going on. Too many people. Too… Too much.”

“But you said I could see it today,” Annie moaned. “For five minutes.”

“I… I know, dear, but-”

“But you promised,” Annie said, cutting Kerry off. 

Kerry closed her eyes in an effort to steady herself, but the moment she did, she was struck with the image of Doug Ross holding the golf club. 

But it wasn’t her who was watching him. 

“I know I promised,” she said slowly, opening her eyes and looking down at Annie. “And I promise you will see it soon. But not today.”

Kerry leaned over to kiss Annie on the forehead, but Annie just stepped back and crossed her arms. Under any other circumstances, she would have been reprimanded for pouting the way she did, but Kerry didn’t have the heart to say anything about it. She could only apologize.

When she finally conceded that Annie was not going to hug her unless her request was met, Kerry just sighed and turned back for the Ambulance Bay doors, but Mildred laid a hand on her arm to stop her. 

“Did something happen?” she asked in a voice so low that only Kerry could hear her. “Are you alright?”

In the same moment, Kerry wanted to tell her mother everything. Not just about this, but about everything she had never told her parents in the twenty-two years since they had moved back to the US after their time traveling through Africa. 

But before she could get any words out, she remembered what her mother had said to her the night before she had started at County. About how she thought Kerry looked at her daughter in shame. 

But her mother was wrong, she thought. Dead wrong. 

It wasn’t shame. It was _protection_. 

“Yeah, I’m fine” she lied. “It’s just… Just not the right day.”

Annie continued to pout for the next three days, but eventually gave in to the fact that she wasn’t going to get to see Momma’s new ER any time soon. Though it did not affect her ability to believe her mother’s promises in the long run, as September faded into October, she _did_ begin to doubt _this_ promise. 

But the funny thing about emergency departments is that, most of the time, it doesn’t take a promise to be why you visit them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello _again!_ You know how I said I already had most of one chapter written and decided to insert chapter three in first? Well, that means that this chapter was almost ready to go, so here we are with two chapters in one night.
> 
> Hmmm... What do I have to say about this chapter? Oh, right. _PAIN._
> 
> I know I've discussed this scene in other stuff (including the sixteen-year-old version in [Ch. 4 of "The Summer of '77"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554961/chapters/48930302)), but it's even _more_ vitally important to Susan and Kerry's interactions in this fic than it is in the others. Without giving too much away, just know that this is not the last time it will come up. But, no matter what universe it's set in, it's not good. The look on Kerry's face when she realizes what they are doing is just... so terrible. Every time. And I had to rewatch the scene it three-second increments like twenty times in order to transcribe it for this and it was just not fun.
> 
> Anyways, it is _way_ past my bedtime. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Until next time.


	5. Inferno

The wound from where the patient had ripped Kerry’s earring was healing well, but every time she saw Randi in the week following, she both chuckled and rolled her eyes. It was not due to the memory of the Desk Clerk whacking the patient upside the head with her crutch nor the warning that followed not to mention it to her parole officer, but rather the (other) revelations that came of it later.

She had recounted the tale while out at dinner that night with Mildred, Annie, and Michael. When she got to the part with Randi and the whacking, her prepared remarks regarding where this fit in to what Annie was and what was _not_ allowed to do with her crutches were preempted by Annie cheerfully telling her that Grandma said she should do something like that if anyone was ever mean about them to her. Mildred stood by her remarks, adding only that that was what Kerry did when she was young. And when Kerry looked to Michael as an ally, she found none, as, though he never said anything mean to her in the time they’d known each other, he’d certainly been on the receiving end of a few “love taps” in his life (which nearly earned him another one before the night was out). 

She was considering this and chuckling to herself as she checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She tucked a loose strand of hair back behind her ear before picking her crutch up from where it leaned against the sink and threading her arm through it.

But just as she turned for the door, it opened and Susan Lewis walked in. At the sight of each other, both women paused where they stood. 

Though no one would say things had been anywhere close to congenial between them since Kerry began at County, things since the day of the incident in the lounge and the subsequent eruption between them had been colder than ever. 

Susan had been surprised at first to find Kerry backing off in her hovering, only to find that when the critiques _did_ come, they were longer and harsher than ever. But, despite the new intensity of these occurrences, they never seemed to happen within earshot of Mark or any of the patients, indicating to Susan that Mark’s telling off had gotten through to her at least a little bit.

They made eye contact for a brief moment. Susan steeled herself for a comment of some kind, even if it was just condescending baby-rearing advice like the last time they’d been alone in the bathroom together. But when none came, Susan just shook her head slightly and continued on towards the stall. 

She was still half-thinking about Weaver and what the likelihood of getting chewed out would be today as she arrived at Admit. She had just picked up a chart of a new patient (“Gastrointestinal distress. Good _God_.”) when a voice came over the radio. 

“This is Unit 45 calling County. County, do you read me?” a man’s voice asked through the receiver. 

“Uh, Carol? I think that’s for you,” Haleh said, nodding at the radio. 

Susan and the other nurses chuckled as Carol rolled her eyes (and blushed) before picking up the radio. 

“Unit 45, this is County. We read you,” Carol said into the radio. “What have you got, Shep?”

“Grease fire at an elementary school got outta hand,” Shep replied. “Only majors were three kitchen workers, and they’re all on their way to Mercy, but we’ve got a lot of minors. Smoke inhalation, a couple minor burns. Mercy is full and Children’s Memorial is closed to trauma. How many could you guys take?”

“You said they’re all minors?”

“Yeah. And the injuries aren’t that bad either.”

Rolling her eyes again, Carol turned back to look at Susan as well as Mark, who’d appeared at her shoulder while Carol was on the call.

“What do you think?”

“If they’re all minors - I mean if they’re all _kids,”_ Mark began, before shaking his head. “If they’re all kids _with_ minors, then I’d say about eight. Maybe ten.”

Carol repeated that into the radio and within a few minutes, Unit 45 was in the Ambulance Bay with the first round of kids. 

Kerry and Mark had taken a boy with some minor burns on his legs down the hall, leaving Doug and Susan to take the next gurney.

On it was a little girl of maybe five or six who, despite the fact that the EMTs had placed an oxygen mask over her face and her striped sweater was gray with soot, appeared very calm. Her eyes moved back and forth between the two doctors as if trying to figure out who they were. 

“Hi, sweetie. What’s your name?” Susan said as they started down to the open trauma room.

“Annie,” the girl replied through the mask. 

“Nice to meet you, Annie,” Susan replied. “I’m Susan and that’s Doug. Do you know where you are?”

“At the hospital?” 

“Mm-hmm. And can you tell me what hurts?”

“Um… Well, my hip hurts from crawling under the smoke. And it kind of hurts to breathe,” she said before coughing a few times. 

Once the gurney had been wheeled into the He, Susan, and the nurses all grabbed hold of the sheet underneath Annie.

“On my count…” Doug directed. “One, two, three…”

There was a heaving motion as Annie was moved onto the trauma table and the doctors and nurses sprung into action hooking her up to the pulse oximeter and machines.

“What hospital is this?” Annie asked as she was asked to sit up so Doug could listen to her lungs. 

“This is County General,” Doug replied, before straightening up and putting his stethoscope back around his neck. “Some minor wheezing, but doesn’t sound like anything is obstructing. Let’s get a blood gas and start a line.”

“County General?” Annie asked, perking up. “Is my mom here?”

“Not yet, honey. But we’ll be sure to call her and let her know you’re here,” Doug reassured her. 

“No, no. She works here. She’s the Chief-” Her words were cut off for a moment as she started coughing again. “She’s the Chief President.”

Susan and Doug froze and then looked at each other over the table. 

“The Chief President?” Susan asked slowly. “You mean the Chief _Resident?”_

Annie hadn’t even nodded yet before it clicked. The strange familiarity of Annie’s features, the spattering of freckles over her nose, the auburn hair…

 _“Annie._ Of _course,”_ Doug said in dawning comprehension of his own. He looked down at her. “You’re Annie Levin. You’re Mike and Kerry’s kid.”

Annie nodded again, and in doing so, happened to turn her head to the left and spotted Kerry in the next room. 

“There she is! That’s my mom!” Annie exclaimed, pointing at Kerry. Then, she moved the mask out of the way and drew in as deep a breath as she could before shouting, _“MOMMA!”_

Susan turned around to look at the other trauma room. And if she hadn’t already believed Annie was Kerry’s daughter, the way that every muscle in Kerry’s body seemed to tense at the sound of the word despite the din of the chaos both trauma rooms would have sealed it.

Immediately distracted from the task at hand, Kerry began looking around, trying to locate the sound. 

“Kerry?” Mark asked, looking up from examining the boy’s foot. “Kerry, what is it?”

“Annie,” she said quickly, looking back and forth. “Annie. I heard Annie.”

“Annie?”

“Yes, Annie,” Kerry snapped. “I heard her yell for me but I don’t know where she is.”

Mark didn’t have a chance to ask who Annie was before Kerry had stepped back from the table to peer out the window of the trauma room door. He just frowned in confusion as she continued to glance around for a moment before looking up and into the next room. 

All the color drained from her face, but Mark couldn’t turn to follow her line of sight. 

In the other room, Susan did a double take between mother and daughter.

“Oh my God. Oh my _God.”_ Then, without so much as a second thought, Susan looked at Doug. “Go switch with Kerry.”

“Susan, I’m alre-”

“Doug, go take over for Kerry so she can come in here,” Susan ordered in a firmer voice than she intended. “Go. _Now.”_

Doug looked for a moment as if he was going to argue, but didn’t. Instead, he just stepped back before running out the door. He was at Kerry’s side within seconds.

Kerry must not have questioned why he did so, as once Doug had joined Mark in the care of the boy on the table, she vanished from view in Trauma Two and reappeared in Trauma One a few seconds later.

“Annie,” she said with panic in her voice as she reached her daughter’s side. “Annie, what happened?”

“There was a fire at school and we had to crawl out under the smoke to get outside,” Annie explained before pausing to cough. 

“Doug said there’s only minor wheezing, no stridor,” Susan informed Kerry. “He called for a blood gas. Probably to check CO and HCN.”

“Pulse ox is 89% on 100% non-rebreather,” Haleh added to Kerry before looking at Susan. “Dr. Lewis, radial artery fine for the blood gas?”

Susan made eye contact with the nurse and then glanced sideways at the other physician in the room, as if indicating she was not the right person to ask. But when Kerry did not seem to notice the question, Susan just nodded for Haleh to proceed.

“Alright, honey,” Haleh said in a reassuring tone as she picked up Annie’s right hand. “You’re going to feel a small pinch. But it’s only gonna hurt for a second. Then it’ll be over.”

When Annie turned her head to look and saw the needle in Haleh’s hand, she squeezed her eyes shut tight. Though Kerry knew the action was because Annie could handle needles so long as she didn’t have to see it (a technique she’d learned from her mother), the fleeting thought that it was a reaction to pain made Kerry’s heart ache.

Willing herself not to break down in front of Annie and the rest of her staff, Kerry took a shaky breath and gently stroked Annie’s arm with her hand. 

Taking a deep breath, Kerry turned to look at Susan, only to frown.

“What are you doing?” she asked in firm-yet-fearful confusion as Susan prepared the ultrasound.

“She said her hip was hurting from the crawling. I want to check that there’s no displacement or dislocation.” She glanced up at Kerry. “Is that okay?”

For a second, Susan was sure she was going to say no. But she didn’t and instead nodded quickly.

Lily cut away Annie’s pants (or at least one leg of them) before Susan put the ultrasound to the girl’s skin.

“Annie, this might feel a bit cold and slimy for a second,” Susan said as she moved the ultrasound slowly across the joint.

“What do you see?” Kerry asked, trying (and failing) to lean forward far enough over the table to see what Susan was squinting at.

“It’s… It’s not clear.” Susan’s brow furrowed. “Hold on. Give me a second. I can’t see the joint yet…”

“Hey, Susan, we’re going to need that over here,” Mark called from the other room.

Susan looked up at Kerry and grimaced. Then, to her surprise, Kerry just nodded. 

“That’s fine. Give it to them,” she instructed. “Let me come over there.”

Susan nodded as she and Lily began rolling the cart with the ultrasound over to Mark in the other room. When she returned to Trauma One, Kerry had taken her place on Annie’s left side. 

“Do you want me to page Radiology?” Susan asked as Kerry gingerly felt the outside of Annie’s hip. 

“Not yet. Hold on.” She took a deep breath before making pointed eye contact with Annie. “Annie, we’re going to play the Yes/No Game. Okay?”

Annie nodded, leading Kerry to place her thumb down on a specific part of Annie’s hip. She pressed down for a moment, watching her daughter’s face closely for any signs of pain.

“Yes or no?”

“No.”

Kerry moved her thumb to a different part of the joint and pressed again. She didn’t have to ask out loud this time as once Kerry let up, Annie just shook her head.

But when Kerry moved her thumb again, this time closer to where the bones met, and pressed once more, Annie winced. 

“That one hurt?” Kerry asked, pressing lightly again as she judged Annie’s reaction.

“Only because you pushed on it.”

“Annie, did it hurt or not?”

“Yeah, it hurt.”

“Does it feel sore? Like when you’ve been running around a lot?” Kerry asked, her brow furrowing. “Or does it feel poke-y? Or pinch-y? Like it’s not where it’s supposed to be?”

Susan probably should have been continuing to work Annie up (or at least have moved on to another patient in the meantime), but she couldn’t take her eyes off of Kerry and ~~mini-Kerry~~ Annie. 

The care with which Kerry listened to and revered Annie with was so absolute, so unwavering, that Susan found herself transfixed. To think only a little while ago, she would have questioned whether Kerry even _could_ care about something or someone other than herself or her work and now… this. 

“Sore. Like I’ve been running around a lot,” Annie replied. “I think it just hurts because it’s tired.”

“Your hip is tired?” Kerry asked, frowning. 

“Uh-huh. Because we had to crawl a long way to get from our class to outside,” Annie explained. “And it’s not used to crawling.”

Kerry paused for a moment and then nodded. Then, breaking her concentration on Annie, she glanced up. 

Much like how as recently as twenty minutes ago, Susan would have questioned Kerry’s care for anything outside her own interests, she would have thought the fact that Kerry just happened to make eye contact with her first out of everyone standing around and ask her to get a dose of Children’s Tylenol - something she could have _easily_ asked of any nurse nearby - was just another power play. Just another way to belittle her and force her to do her bidding. 

But there was no way the sheer amount of anguish and fear in Kerry’s eyes was anything less than one-hundred percent genuine. 

Annie had just drank down the prescribed 3.75 mL of acetaminophen (and made a face about it), before another round of paramedics arrived in the Ambulance Bay with more kids in need of care.

“She’s stable, so we’re going to need to move her to another room,” Susan suggested/told Kerry once the medicine cup had been disposed of. 

Kerry nodded in response to Susan and then looked down at Annie. She slipped her hand out of Annie’s to gently cup the girl’s cheek.

“Okay, honey,” Kerry said in a low voice. “The nurses are going to move you into another room and they’re going to look after you until Momma comes. Okay?”

“Do you have to help more people?” Annie asked.

“Yes. I do. And then I’m going to come take care of you. For the rest of the day.”

Annie nodded at Kerry’s reassurance. Kerry squeezed her hand once more before stepping back to allow Haleh, Lily, and the others move Annie onto a gurney to move her into an exam room. 

Once Annie was out the door, Kerry exhaled and honestly appeared ready to collapse.

“I can handle the next round if you want to go with her,” Susan offered quietly, ignoring the sound of another gurney on its way towards them. 

“No, it’s… You were right. She’s stable. And if that changes, then they’ll-” At the thought of ending that sentence, Kerry swallowed hard. Then, she shook her head. “It won’t take long.”

“Kerry, you should-”

“Susan, I said she’s fine,” Kerry snapped, her usual bite flaring up as she looked at Susan. “We have other patients who might not be.”

Susan considered arguing further, but the time to decide that was cut short as another patient was rolled in front of them. 

It wasn’t a kid as they’d expected, but rather a teacher who’d been rushed in when his students noticed he wasn’t making any sense. And it was clear why once his tests came back and they saw how little oxygen was in his system.

As they sedated him in preparation for intubation, his last words before going under were about how the flames looked just like the illustrations in his beloved copy of _Dante’s Inferno_. 

That made sense, Kerry thought as she called for an 8-0 ET tube and a scope. Seeing Annie on the trauma table, hurt and covered in ash and soot? Nearly losing control of herself as she rushed to Annie’s side? Letting the staff in on the personal life she didn’t trust them to know about?

 _Dante’s Inferno_ might just be the right descriptor, because this certainly felt like hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday! I was about to start this by saying "I hope this finds you well" (which I do), but that's how I start pretty much every professional email, so we're going to steer _away_ from that. 
> 
> I'm always fascinated by how long my fanfiction chapters can get. Like, we're only five chapters in and yet we've already reached over 14,000 words. And while I feel that what matters more in the long run is if you've told the story you wanted to tell to the best of your ability, eventually, I'm going to want to print this out and bind into a book like I usually do and if it gets ridiculously long, then it gets really expensive. Also, I can get very rambly and long chapters might cause readers to lose interest. I hope the content of chapters makes up for that at least.
> 
> Things are really coming together in my head for the direction of this AU and I'm really excited about it. I hope you are too. 
> 
> Until next time.


	6. Aftereffects

By the time they had moved the last victim of the elementary school fire into another room, Kerry felt close to collapsing from exhaustion. But no matter how much she was ready to drop everything and wrap her arms around Annie for the rest of the day (if not the rest of time), she wasn’t done yet. 

As she arrived back at the Admit Desk, she called out to Mark, whose face was alight with concern.

“Hey, are you alright?” he asked, frowning. “You rushed out of the trauma and-”

“It’s… It’s nothing. Just-” Kerry let out a sigh. “Will you take the rest of my patients?”

“Um, sure,” Mark replied, though his frown didn’t lessen. 

“I’ll keep Levin in Exam Three, but if you’ll take the rest,” she said quietly as she started out of the desk area. Then, she paused briefly. “And, uh, please don’t page me unless you have to.”

She continued on just as Susan arrived at the desk, having situated a kid in Curtain one. Mark watched Kerry for a moment before turning to Susan, a confused look on his face. 

“I don’t think Weaver’s turned over her patients this far before the end of her shift. You know what that’s about?”

Susan inhaled deeply and then dropped her voice. 

“One of the kids that was brought in from the fire is Weaver’s daughter.”

“Weaver has a daughter?”

“Apparently,” Susan said with a shrug. “And if you don’t believe me, go look in Exam Three. Because the resemblance is uncanny.”

She glanced at where Kerry stood at a phone across the room. Her choice to call from there and not the desk was likely an attempt at privacy.

Susan watched her for a long moment, a tinge of... _something_ creeping into her thoughts at the sight of the authoritative-edging-on-tyrannical Chief Resident looking so close to tears out of concern for her daughter. 

“Did _you_ know Weaver had a kid?”

Susan tore her eyes away from Kerry to figure out who Mark was speaking to and found Doug had joined them at the counter.

“Yeah, he did. He even knew her name,” Susan answered for him. “But what I don’t understand is _why_ you knew that.”

“I used to work with her, remember? Back during my residency. Knew her and Mike both.”

“Mike who?”

“Mike Levin. He’s Kerry’s husband. Well, actually, I think he’s her _ex-husband_ now, but still,” Doug said with a shrug. “He’s a surgeon over at Mt. Sinai. I worked with them both. And they’d bring Annie around every so often. I didn’t recognize her right off because it’s been… God, two or three years since I last saw her?

“And, honestly? I kind of forgot she existed. Because It’s Weaver, you know. She’s pretty ‘separation of church and state’ if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, but not even telling her coworkers that she has a kid?” Susan asked in disbelief. “Even she’s not _that_ private, right?”

Doug just raised his eyebrows and shrugged again before picking up a new chart and continuing on to his next patient.

“Hey, Dr. Lewis?” 

Susan sighed and turned away from the desk to see one of the paramedics jogging towards her from the Ambulance Bay doors. 

“Hey, Shep,” Susan greeted tiredly. “What’s up?”

“I found these out in my rig,” he said, holding up a pair of bright green crutches covered in stickers. “I think they belong to one of the kids we brought in.”

Even without yet seeing the purple and red stickers spelling out _Annie_ on the shaft of one of the crutches, Susan had a feeling she knew who they belonged to.

“Yep. I think they do.” Susan held out a hand for them. “I’ll get them back to her.”

Shep handed the crutches over to her before disappearing back out the doors. 

Susan examined them as she started towards Exam Three. Turning them over in her hands as she walked, she smiled at the rainbows, smiley faces, and other colorful designs adorning the epoxy-coated aluminum. 

And, confirming her suspicion once and for all, right as she reached the door, she saw the name _A. Levin_ in familiar handwriting written in black Sharpie just underneath the inside of each cuff. 

Kerry must still have been making phone calls, for when Susan peeked her head into Exam Three, she found Annie sitting alone on one of the beds, changed from her soot-stained clothes into a pediatric hospital gown. She didn’t seem to mind being alone, though, as she was currently held in deep fascination by the pulse oximeter that was clipped to her finger. 

“Hey, Annie?” Susan asked, taking a step inside. 

Annie jumped slightly, but raised her eyebrows nonetheless.

“Yeah?”

“Do these belong to you?” Susan asked, holding up the crutches. 

“Yeah, they do!” Annie replied, perking up and nodding. “Where did you find them?”

“They were still inside the ambulance that brought you in.” 

“Ohhh.” Annie nodded as Susan crossed to a seat next to the bed. When Susan hooked them on the side rail of the bed, Annie narrowed her eyes at the and added in what was almost an aside, “I knew I didn’t leave them at school.”

Then, Annie looked up at Susan and cocked her head in question.

“How did you know they were mine?”

“Well, because it looks like you put your name on them,” Susan said, picking up one of the crutches to point out the stickers in question. “And it looks like someone else wrote your name on them too.”

“That was probably my Momma,” Annie informed her, nodding once more. “She did the same thing to my lunch box.”

Susan chuckled and picked up Annie’s chart. Someone must have asked Kerry to fill in the top section instead of dictating it, as everything that normally would have been filled in by a desk clerk or a nurse was written in her handwriting. 

**_Name:_** _Levin, Annalise E._ **_DOB:_** _07/26/1990_ **_Gender:_** _F_ **_SSN:_** _xxx-xx-6495_

 **_Parent/ Guardian (if minor):_ ** _Kerry Weaver; Michael Levin, Jr._

Susan read through the most recent vital signs. Annie’s sats were up, which explained why they’d swapped out the oxygen mask for a nasal cannula. 

Susan glanced at readings on the machines herself before setting the chart back down. 

“So, how do you feel? Any better?”

“Yeah. It doesn’t feel as hard to breathe as it did earlier,” Annie reported. “But I keep coughing though.”

“Yeah, you’ll probably cough for a while,” Susan said with a small shrug. “When you inhaled the smoke, you really inhaled tiny little particles of the stuff that was burning. And your lungs don’t like that other stuff. They only want air, so the coughing is your lungs trying to get the stuff to come out.”

Annie looked at her for a second.

“So, I keep coughing because I got schmutz in my lungs?” 

Susan opened her mouth to respond and then closed it. 

“Okay. I’ll be honest with you,” she told Annie sincerely. “I don't know what ‘schmutz’ means.”

“It’s like gunk.”

“Oh. Well, then, yes. You keep coughing because you’ve got schmutz in your lungs,” Susan confirmed. Then, she took a deep breath. “And how about your hip? Does it feel any better?”

Annie paused, deep in thought. She wiggled her left leg a bit as if testing it and winced slightly. 

“Not yet. But it will,” she said, looking back up at Susan. “The red medicine always helps it feel better. Even though it’s yucky. But it’s less yucky than the pink medicine.”

“Do you have to take the red medicine a lot?” Susan asked curiously. “Because your hip hurts?”

“No. It doesn’t hurt that much” Annie shook her head. “But Momma says that’s because I use my crutches like I’m supposed to. She says it would hurt a lot more if I didn’t.”

Susan nodded. She glanced at the crutches for a moment before looking back at Annie and raising an eyebrow. 

“Did you decorate them yourself?”

Annie nodded enthusiastically. When she smiled, Susan could see a gap where she had already lost a tooth.

“My friend Sara who sits across from me at school has a bunch of stickers on her pencil box and she gave some stickers to me to put on mine. But I don’t have a pencil box; I have a pencil _bag_. And the stickers didn’t stick to it because it’s made of cloth and not plastic like the box is. So, I decided to put them on my crutches instead. And then I remembered that I got a bunch more stickers for my birthday, so I added more when I got home,” Annie explained happily. Then, she gave Susan the sincere look of young children. “I told Momma that she should put some on her crutch too, but she didn’t want to.”

“Yeah, grownups don’t usually do stuff like that.”

She chuckled as Annie heaved a sigh.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding though looking thoroughly put-out. Then, she made a face. “Being a grownup sounds boring.”

Susan smiled and patted her leg gently. 

“Susan?” 

Susan and Annie both looked towards the doorway following the sound of the name and found Kerry standing there looking anxious.

She’d changed too, or at least had taken off her lab coat, leaving her in just her turtleneck and slacks. It struck Susan how, between wearing what were effectively now just street clothes along with an expression of trepidation as her eyes flitted between Susan and Annie, no one would guess she was normally so austere and self-assured. Without her lab coat on, she looked just like any other scared parent whose child had been rushed into the ER unexpectedly. 

“Momma?” Annie asked, leaning sideways to look around Susan.

“Just another second, honey,” Kerry reassured Annie before looking back at Susan. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure,” Susan replied, nodding. 

She rose from her seat next to Annie, who waved at Kerry before turning her attention back to the pulse oximeter on her finger, and crossed to the door. 

Kerry stepped back into the hallway. Susan followed her lead, stepping away from the door so as not to be heard (or possibly eavesdropped on?) by Annie.

“The paramedics brought in her crutches from their rig, so I was just returning them to her,” Susan found herself explaining before Kerry had the chance to say anything. 

Kerry nodded. 

“Thank you. And…” Kerry took a deep breath. “Thank you for your quick thinking. Back there in the trauma. Doug said it was your idea to have him switch with me and…. and I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah. Of course,” Susan said, nodding earnestly. “You would do the same for me if it was Suzie.”

For a moment, she and Kerry just stared at each other.

Where had _that_ come from? 

That… That wasn’t what Susan had intended to say, but, now having seen Kerry’s response to Annie in the trauma room, she didn’t think she was wrong. Given how much she cared for her own child, Susan suddenly didn’t doubt Kerry would return the care if any of her colleagues had been in her shoes. 

But what bothered Susan was how easily it had been to tell her that. 

“Um... yes,” Kerry said quietly after a long moment of silence. Then, she shook her head. “Anyways, thank you again.”

And with that, turned for the exam room and started for the bed where Annie sat. 

Susan watched from the doorway as Kerry slid her crutch off of her arm, scooped up Annie in her arms, and then sat down on the bed with Annie on her lap all in one fluid motion. 

For a long moment, Kerry just squeezed Annie as tight as she possibly could. She didn’t care that it was this what finally made her break and start crying. She just needed to sit and hold her daughter for as long as the world would let her. 

However, it was not the world but rather Annie that eventually put an end to the hug. 

“Momma, you’re hurting me.”

Kerry opened her eyes and immediately released the hug. She let out a few watery chuckles and wiped her eyes before kissing Annie on the head. 

“Sorry, honey. I’m just very very glad that you’re okay,” she said quietly, stroking Annie’s cheek again. “When I saw you on the table in the trauma room, I got really scared. Were you scared?”

Annie shook her head. Kerry brushed a stray hair behind Annie’s ear.

“You weren’t scared?” When Annie shook her head again, Kerry’s brow furrowed. “Not even a little bit?”

“No. Not really,” Annie replied. “We just had a fire drill last week, so when the fire alarm went off, we all knew what to do. But it was different from last week because this time when we went out into the hallway, it was all smoky and hard to see.”

Kerry smiled weakly and pulled Annie closer to her, tucking the young girl’s head underneath her chin. Automatically, Annie relaxed her head on Kerry’s shoulder and within a few seconds had begun to yawn. 

Watching them from her vantage point in the hallway, Susan was overcome with an urge to go upstairs and hug Suzie like that. Sure, the baby was too young to sit up on her lap like that, but that didn’t mean that Susan couldn’t hug her tight to her.

But just as she wondered if she couldn’t duck away for a second (which may be much more likely than usual what with the Chief Resident currently well distracted), she heard a woman’s voice speaking loudly from near Admit. 

“I don’t understand how hard it is to read a name off of a white board,” she said firmly as Jerry held up his hands defensively. “I mean it’s only five letters. Levin. L-E-V-I-N. It can’t possibly be that hard to find. ”

As Susan got closer to Admit, she saw the woman more clearly. 

She was in her seventies or perhaps even early eighties, but age did not seem to have lessened the woman’s fire at all. And as she continued to complain as the gentle giant desk clerk tried to find the information she wanted, Susan started to place why the woman’s accent and the way she had her hands on her hips seemed so familiar. 

“You wouldn’t happen to be Kerry Weaver’s mother, would you?” Susan asked as she gently tapped the woman’s shoulder. 

Having seen the resemblance between Kerry and Annie, when the woman spun around, Susan half-expected to see an elderly version of Kerry, but the woman did not look like Kerry at all. Her nose was wider, her cheekbones less prominent, and her long gray hair was far curlier than the Chief Resident’s. But despite the lack of resemblance, the woman nodded. 

“Yes, I am,” she confirmed. “Do you know where I can find her?”

“Yeah, I do,” Susan said, nodding. “She’s with Annie. I’ll take you to her.”

“Oh, _thank you.”_ The woman looked up for a brief moment as if thanking God before she glanced back at the desk and waved them away apologetically. “And thank you too. I’m sorry for getting upset.”

She then turned and began walking in step with Susan back towards the exam room.

“He’s a good desk clerk,” Susan said with a backward glance at Jerry (who now looked thoroughly exhausted). “He’s just not all that great under pressure.”

“So I’ve heard,” the woman muttered. She extended a hand to Susan. “I’m Mildred Weaver.”

“Susan,” Susan replied, taking her hand and shaking it.

“Lewis?” Mildred asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Um… yeah, actually.” 

“Lovely. It’s nice to put a face to the name.”

Susan nodded, but her brow nevertheless furrowed. 

“I take it Kerry’s talked about me at home then?” she asked hesitantly (as she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know the answer).

“Not much. She mostly filled me in on who’s who. Who works here, what they do, all that,” Mildred answered with a shrug. “You’re the one who has custody of her niece, yes?”

“Yeah. Well, temporarily,” Susan said with a sigh. “Though the way things are going, it might become permanent. It’s just a waiting game right now.”

“Ah, yes,” Mildred said with a knowing nod. “The waiting was always the worst part. The waiting and the paperwork.”

When Susan glanced at her, frowning, Mildred just chuckled and heaved a sigh of her own.

“My husband and I were never able to have children of our own, so we opted to adopt instead. But it wasn’t… Well, let’s just say it took far longer than we ever hoped,” she explained. “Finally, we were able to adopt Kerry, but I assure you, that was not our first foray into the child welfare system.”

“Kerry’s adopted?” Susan asked before she could stop herself. 

Well, that certainly explained why Kerry knew to give her the advice to go get temporary custody through DCFS.

“Oh, yes. We never kept that a secret from her or anyone else. It allowed us to be a resource to others when they were going through the adoption process.” Mildred glanced at Susan out of the side of her eye and raised her eyebrows. “If you ever have any questions about the paperwork or what to expect or, well, even if you just need someone to vent to, I’d be happy to sit down and chat with you.”

“Really? I mean, if you’re serious, that would be fantastic,” Susan said, trying not to let her excitement get the best of her. “I mean, I’ve got a case manager from DCFS but I think she’s new. As in, she’s really excited to be helpful, but can’t really answer many of my questions.”

“Mm-hmm. I understand _completely_. And yes, I am serious. I’ll give you the house phone and we can set up a time for you to come over. And the baby too, if you’d like.”

“That would be really great. Thank you.” Susan smiled broadly only for it to falter a moment later. “Do you think Kerry will mind if I come over? I know she tries to keep her work and home life pretty separate.”

They slowed to pause just before Exam Three and to Susan’s surprise (and, let’s admit it, delight), Mildred just rolled her eyes and waved her away. 

“Of course she’ll mind, but that’s only because she’s Kerry and she minds everything. Don’t worry about her.” Mildred gave Susan a sly look. “And even if she does have a problem with it, I have a little trick up my sleeve as to how to deal with her.”

“Really? What?”

“She’s my daughter. If I use the Momma voice, she _has_ to listen to me.”

Mildred winked and then stepped into Exam Three with a booming (yet still gentle), “Now, there are my girls.”

Susan watched her kiss Annie and Kerry on the forehead in turn before pulling a small stuffed dog out of her pocket and handing it to Annie. Annie picked her head up from where she’d relaxed it on Kerry’s shoulder and squeezed the dog to her chest for a second before, for reasons Susan couldn’t explain, she put the plush toy on top of her head. 

She watched mother, daughter, and granddaughter laugh for a moment before Susan finally turned away from the doorway and started for the elevator. 

And as she made her way towards daycare to give Suzie a big hug, she wondered if putting stuffed animals on your head was going to be some of the parenting advice Mildred would give her, as if Mildred was as good a mother as Kerry, she was certainly learn how to do something right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize to inform you that there are still a few chapters before I explain why Annie enjoys putting stuffed animals on her head. But be assured, there is a very good reason for it and not just because it seems like a goofy cute thing a kid would do. 
> 
> Not much to say on this chapter other than we're starting to get somewhere and I'm excited for what's to come. 
> 
> Hope you're having a good weekend and as always, thanks for reading. Until next time.


	7. Visitation Rights

Susan looked at the house and then back down at the address on the slip of paper in her hand. 

It wasn’t necessarily that she thought she had the _wrong_ house, per se. Just that it seemed odd that a ranch this small could comfortably fit two grown women and a five-year-old without anyone feeling cramped. 

But as she climbed the porch steps to knock on the (almost-hidden) front door, it occurred to her that what the house lacked in width, it more than made up for in length. It was about three times as deep as it was wide and she could see through the windows on either side of the door into a modest living room. 

Susan had just noticed the window to her left that peered into a small dining area when the door opened in front of her and she was greeted by Mildred Weaver’s warm smile. 

“Welcome, welcome. Glad you’re here and that you found it alright.” She stepped aside to allow Susan to step inside. “Come on in. And please take your shoes off if you don’t mind. House rule.”

Mildred winked as she said the last two words, which gave Susan the distinct impression that it was not her who had made up said rule. 

But nevertheless, once she was inside and Mildred had shut the door behind her, Susan kicked off her shoes and nudged them in order with the rest that were lined up next to the door.

“Is this your niece?” Mildred asked as Susan set Suzie’s car seat (and by extension Suzie) on the dining room table. 

“Yep. This is her,” Susan replied as she put the car seat handle down. 

“Oh, she’s precious,” Mildred said, with a broad smile directed at Little Suzie. Then, she looked up at Big Suzie. “May I?”

Mildred raised her eyebrows and motioned slightly as if to pick Suzie up. 

“Oh, yeah. Sure,” Susan said, nodding to her to go ahead. “It’s just about time for her noon bottle anyway.”

“Well, we can certainly get that for you, can’t we?” Mildred cooed as she lifted Suzie up into her arms. Then, again, she glanced back at Susan. “And what about you? Have you eaten lunch yet?”

“Oh, no. But I’m fine. I’m not hungry.”

“That’s not what I asked you, dear,” Mildred said, observing Susan pointedly over the rim of her glasses. “I asked if you had eaten lunch.”

It was clear by Mildred’s tone that Susan was not going to get out of this just by trying to be polite.

“No, I haven’t eaten lunch yet,” Susan finally said with a small chuckle.

Mildred nodded as she and Suzie turned for the kitchen across from the dining area. 

There was the sound of a door opening from down the hall that Susan figured led to the rest of the house. It was followed by footsteps interspersed with soft clicks that Susan had grown to associate with impending frustration.

But it wasn’t Kerry who appeared in the kitchen but rather Annie, dressed in a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and Pikachu-patterned pants. Though apparently freshly combed, her hair was still dripping from her bath.

“Are we all clean?” Mildred asked as she set a pot of water on the stove to heat up for Suzie’s bottle.

“We don’t smell like chlorine anymore, if that’s what you mean,” Kerry said from the hallway. 

“But I _like_ smelling like chlorine,” Annie said with some protest in her voice. “I told Momma I didn’t want to take a bath, so I could keep smelling like chlorine.”

“And I didn’t listen, did I?” Kerry said with a chuckle. “Now come here so I can finish drying your hair.”

Annie objected, but Kerry caught her right as she was about to swing herself forward in the direction of the living room. She pulled Annie back against her legs as Annie wriggled in defiance, but in the end, said wriggling was not enough to successfully escape the towel in Kerry’s hand. 

“Alright… There. You’re free,” Kerry said as she released Annie (whose hair was now drier but also sticking up in some places). “Well, not _that_ free, because we’re about to eat lunch. So, you need to find your seat.”

Kerry pointed towards the table. As she did so, she caught sight of Susan and immediately straightened up, a rush of color flooding her cheeks. 

“Susan? What… What are you doing here?” 

Susan wasn’t exactly sure what reaction she expected from Kerry seeing her outside of work, but whatever it was, it certainly did not involve that amount of alarm in her voice. 

“I invited her,” Mildred said from the stove. 

Kerry looked from Susan to her mother, her brow furrowing in confusion.

 _“You_ invited her?”

“Yes,” Mildred confirmed before stepping closer to Kerry and hissing, “So, be a good host.”

“Wait. I know you,” Annie cocked her head sideways at Susan and narrowed her eyes. “You work at the hospital with Momma, right? You and Momma took care of me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s right,” Susan said, nodding. “How do you feel? Better?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m not coughing anymore, so I think that means all the schmutz is gone,” Annie replied sincerely. “Momma even let me go to swim lessons today. She didn’t let me go last week because I was still wheezing a little, but I was okay to go today.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Susan replied with a smile.

Annie smiled back and then started for the table. She climbed up into the seat at the far side from where Susan sat and noticed the car seat sitting on the table.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a car seat. For my niece,” Susan said. She pointed at where Mildred stood in the kitchen holding (and murmuring to) Suzie. “Your grandma is holding her.”

If Annie had turned any faster to look at who or whatever her grandma was holding, she very well would’ve flung herself off her chair. 

“You have a _baby?”_ she asked in awe.

Mildred smiled and crossed to the dining room to hand Suzie off so she could start making lunch.

“Well, I’m taking care of a baby,” Susan clarified, turning Suzie around to face Annie. “She’s my sister’s baby. But... but my sister went on a trip and decided that I should take care of her for a while. So, she might end up being my baby some day.”

“How?” Annie asked, frowning. “Won’t your sister come back from her trip?”

“Well, I don’t really know.” Susan let out a sigh. “She took the trip without really telling me. And that’s not okay, so we might end up deciding that it’s best if I take care of the baby permanently.”

“Like you’d adopt her?” 

“Yep. That’s why I came over.” Susan chanced a glance up at Kerry, who was still standing, shell-shocked, near where the hallway met the kitchen. “Your grandma offered to help me out and teach me what I should know about adoption.”

“Because she adopted Momma?” Annie asked, looking from Susan to Mildred, who nodded.

“Exactly, dear,” Mildred replied. “Exactly.”

Mildred offered to get Suzie’s bottle out of the diaper bag and began to heat it up. Kerry took advantage of that and the fact that Susan and Annie were distracted by Suzie to start assisting Mildred with lunch.

“Why did you invite her here?” she said in a terse whisper when Mildred returned with the bottle of formula. “And why didn’t you tell me?”

“I invited her here to go over adoption. She just said that,” Mildred whispered back. “And I apologize. I thought I _did_ tell you.”

“When did you even meet her?” 

“She walked me to where you and Annie were the day that Annie was rushed to the ER. I asked if she was the one who had custody of her niece and we got to talking,” Mildred explained, closing the gap between her and her daughter’s shoulders so their words didn’t escape into the dining room. “And I don’t know why you’re so surprised. You told me that it was you that suggested she go file for temporary custody.”

“I suggested she file for temporary custody. I didn’t invite her over to my house,” Kerry hissed. “Mom, she’s my coworker.”

“So what?”

 _“So.”_ Kerry let out a huff. “Mom, I don’t… I don’t do that. I don’t invite my coworkers over to my house to discuss… personal stuff.”

“And _you_ don’t have to,” Mildred said, the air of finality evident even in her whisper. “She’s here to see _me_ . _I’m_ going to discuss personal stuff with her. You can watch TV or play with Annie or go sulk in your room for all I care.”

_“Mom.”_

“Kerry, my love, it’s done. So I kindly suggest that you suck it up.”

And with that, Mildred put the final piece of bread down on the sandwiches she was preparing and turned for the table.

Following lunch (which was either very tense or hardly tense at all depending on which side of the table you were sitting), Kerry settled on the couch on the far side of the living room so she could both keep an eye on everyone.

Susan pulled a blanket out of the diaper bag and laid it on the floor of the living room. But she’d barely laid it out before Annie sat down on it, eagerly awaiting Suzie to join her. Kerry opened her mouth to tell her off, but stopped when Susan just chuckled and laid the baby down. 

“There you go, Suzie,” Susan murmured. “You’re gonna play with Annie. How’s that?”

She laid Suzie down on her stomach and Annie did the same, shuffling herself forward until she was almost nose-to-nose with Suzie. 

Kerry couldn’t help but smile as Annie lay mesmerized by the baby. She couldn’t tell from where she was sitting if Suzie looked equally as mesmerized, but she had a funny feeling that the baby was as interested in Annie as Annie was in her. (She was right.)

For a long time, the two girls just watched each other before Annie turned over onto her side. This seemed to greatly please Suzie, who let out a delighted gurgle. 

“Momma, she smiled at me!”

“I see that, honey,” Kerry said quietly. “I bet she’d smile more if you get one of her toys for her.”

Kerry nodded at a set of toy keys and a soft rattle that Susan had gotten out while pulling out the blanket. 

Annie grabbed the toy keys and then held it up to Suzie, who reached for it. Annie let her take it and then giggled as Suzie shook it happily. 

“She likes it!” Suddenly, Annie paused thinking. “Momma, can I show her one of my toys?”

“If you want to,” Kerry said with a shrug. “But she’s a baby, so it can’t be anything really little.”

Annie nodded and then raced off to her bedroom. Suzie, however, did not like the sudden disappearance of her new friend and quickly began to cry. 

Susan looked up from the paperwork she was reviewing with Mildred. She was about to get up when she saw Kerry sigh and slide off the couch and onto the floor. 

She picked Suzie up and held her against her shoulder to soothe her for a brief moment. Once Suzie had calmed, she set the baby girl on her lap, supporting her back so Suzie could sit up. She even turned Suzie slightly and pointed at Susan, but as soon as she made eye contact with Susan, she looked away. 

Annie returned a moment later, pulling Susan’s attention away from Kerry. She had a book tucked under one arm and had the stuffed dog Mildred had brought to her in the ER on top of her head. 

When she returned to where Suzie now sat on Kerry’s lap, she slid her arms out of her crutches and set them aside before pulling the book out from under her arm. 

“I brought Rex and I brought a book so I could read to her.”

“I bet she would like that,” Kerry said, stroking Annie’s hair. Then, she looked at Annie seriously. “But if you show Rex to her, just know that she might put him in her mouth or spit up on him.”

Susan couldn’t see the face Annie made at her mother’s statement, but she _really_ wished she had.

“Why would she do that?”

“Because that’s what babies do,” Kerry informed her. “So if you don’t want her to do that, just show her. Don’t let her play with him.”

At Annie’s nod, Rex fell off of the top of her head, which made Suzie giggle harder than Susan had ever seen before. 

Annie looked at her in surprise and then up at Kerry, who had raised her eyebrow. 

“I think she liked when Rex fell off your head. Do it again.”

Annie picked up the toy dog and put it back on her head before nodding so it fell off again. And, again, Suzie burst out in giggles. 

Susan watched as Annie picked the dog up and, this time, put it on _Suzie’s_ head. She then gave it a light tap forward so it fell off of Suzie’s head, which elicited an even bigger fit of giggles. 

By now, both Susan and Mildred had given up on the paperwork on the table in front of them to instead watch Annie and Suzie playing together. 

Or, at least, _Susan_ watched them.

Unbeknownst to her, Mildred was not watching the girls playing together, but rather watching _her_. And, more specifically, the way that her eyes seemed to flick between the girls and the woman sitting with them. 

She had a funny feeling that she knew what that was, but she’d need to see it again and in other contexts to be sure. But, of course, that was all the more reason to make this a regular occurence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello, hello! I hope this Monday has treated you well. 
> 
> In the Google Doc in which I'm writing this, I've already broken fifty pages. And we're only _barely_ scratching the surface. We've got a _lot_ still in store, both before they get to admitting their feelings and after. (I feel a little better knowing it should not take until page 107 like it did in the "uc" Google Doc... but I make no promises.)
> 
> I keep rewatching little snippets of season 2 stuff because I've only watched season 2 through once, _maybe_ twice because my girls are fighting the entire time and it makes me sad. Also, Susan does not adopt Little Suzie which makes me even sadder. But this fic starts in season 2, so I keep having to watch random parts to make sure that this all fits (AU-wise) into season 2. We get so little about Kerry that season that I feel like it's too easy to teeter on the edge of her characterization. 
> 
> I hope you're enjoying this and that all this original stuff is both interesting and new while also feeling like it fits into the _ER_ -verse as we know it. In other words, I hope this all feels like content from secret new episodes that you accidentally discovered while watching on your special edition collector's set DVD.
> 
> Have a good rest of your day/night! Until next time.


	8. Bedfellows

Susan pulled the Social Security card out of her folder and glanced at it for a second before scribbling the number on to the piece of paper in front of her. But, just as she went to tuck it back inside, she saw the name and stopped.

_Susan Marie Lewis_

It was the wrong card. Somehow, she must have switched her card with Suzie’s at some point in gathering the paperwork up. 

But just as she fished her own card out of her wallet to switch them back, it occurred to her that the number she’d written down was not her own. She had hers memorized and the one she’d copied from the card was not it. 

She glanced down at the card from her wallet and blinked.

_Susan Meredith Lewis_

The one in her wallet was hers. She had just seen the _Susan M____ Lewis_ on the one in the folder and immediately thought it was hers.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Mildred asked, glancing up at Susan over her glasses.

“Um… Nothing. I thought I got Suzie and I’s cards mixed up, but apparently not,” she said, replacing her card back in her wallet. She looked at Suzie’s again, frowning. “I… I never realized her legal name was Susan. Chloe never called her anything else, so I just assumed...”

Her words trailed off as she looked at it for another long moment, considering all that she’d apparently put the wrong name on so far, but more so the fact that Chloe really _had_ named Suzie after her. Not just the nickname, but her full first name. 

Susan gave an unconscious shake of her head before slipping the card back into the folder and turning her attention back to the paperwork in front of her.

“That’s good to know,” Mildred remarked as Susan put a line through _Suzie_ at the top of the page of paperwork and wrote _Susan_ in its place. “When you adopt her, she’ll get a new Social Security Number. You could probably change it then if you wanted to. Helpful to find out now, though, both for legal purposes before then as well as for her trouble name, should you need it.”

“Her trouble name?” Susan repeated, frowning. “What’s a ‘trouble name’?”

“A very useful parenting tool, I’ll tell you that much.” Mildred let out a chuckle. “Put simply, it’s a way for them to know you’re serious. Typically, it’s first name plus middle name, though if they usually go by a nickname or a derivative of their name, you get an extra one in the form of their full first name.”

She raised her brow at Susan and then glanced over at her granddaughter, who was lying on the floor coloring in a _The Little Mermaid_ coloring book.

Like she had been pretty much every time Susan came to visit in the last few weeks, Annie had chosen to sit/play/be as close to Suzie as she possibly could. Today was no exception, as though the baby lay asleep in her car seat, Annie still had her place at the baby’s side. 

“Right, Annie?”

“Huh?” Annie said, looking up from her coloring book.

“What do Momma and Grandma call you when we want you to listen to us?”

“Annalise.”

“And what do we call you when you’re in trouble?” 

“Annalise Elisheva,” Annie replied automatically.

Mildred glanced back at Susan and gave a small shrug as if to say, _“There you go.”_

Susan smiled, first in response to Mildred and then at Annie, who had sat up and now looked thoroughly confused as to why her trouble name had come up in conversation without any precipitating wrongdoing.

“Elisheva is a pretty name. I’ve never heard it before.”

“It means Elizabeth, which is my Momma’s middle name!” Annie happily informed her. “But Momma’s name is in English and mine is in Hebrew.”

“Hence, Kerry’s trouble name is ‘Kerry Elizabeth,’” Mildred muttered to Susan out of the side of her mouth. 

Susan didn’t have the chance to chuckle at Mildred’s smirk (or the thought of what the Chief Resident’s face would look like if she knew Susan now knew her trouble name) when she glanced at the clock on the living room wall.

_“Shoot.”_

“What?” Mildred asked, frowning. 

“I forgot I’m supposed to go interview a nanny,” Susan said as she started to gather things up. “I’ve been lucky enough to have just day shifts for a while, but my schedule is going to change next week. Meaning I’m running out of time to figure out what to do with Suzie overnight. And… And, well, if this doesn’t go well, I’m going to have to go beg my parents for help. And I’d honestly rather not.”

“Well, if you need someone to look after Suzie overnight, I would be happy to.”

Susan froze half-way out of her seat in the direction of the diaper bag. 

Slowly, she sat back down, maintaining unblinking eye contact with Mildred the whole time.

“Are you serious?”

“I assure you, dear, I’m _always_ serious,” Mildred said with a small smile. “To be honest, I would have offered it sooner, but I didn’t want to overwhelm you too fast.”

“Oh, please overwhelm me,” Susan said earnestly. “I think it’s clear I need all the help I can get. And the less we have to involve my family, the better.”

“Well, in that case, we have a fairly-spacious finished basement complete with a bathroom. Between the girls both having hip problems and my being eighty-one, let’s just say, plans for its use never really panned out,” Mildred explained in a thoughtful (but clearly pointed) voice. “I’m sure if you preferred living accommodations with live-in childcare, we could arrange for that to happen.”

Susan stared at her, fighting her mouth not to drop open. 

She had been expecting for Mildred to say she was willing to even be lenient on cost (or even perhaps not charge her at all). She was _not_ expecting to be offered a new place to live. 

“I mean… It would…” Susan let out a deep breath, her eyes widening. “I mean it would be really great to not have to worry about bringing her over in the morning or-or having to come get her late at night…”

“And I’m sure she’d enjoy having Annie around. And Annie would certainly enjoy having her around,” Mildred said quietly. 

She nodded towards the car seat. Suzie was now awake, but had been distracted from her usual post-nap cry by Annie, who was showing her the picture of Ariel and Sebastian she’d colored in (and explaining that even though Ariel had red hair like her that that did _not_ mean that she was her favorite princess). 

Susan watched them for a long moment and then sighed. 

“That would be great and all, but I don’t think Kerry would ever agree to that.”

“You let me handle Kerry,” Mildred said, waving her away. “And you never know. She can be surprisingly agreeable.”

“You offered her _WHAT?”_

Mildred rolled her eyes as she took a sip from her cup of tea. 

“I think you heard me, dear.”

Kerry blinked. Her mouth hung agape as she tried to process what the hell was going on.

“No. Absolutely not,” she said firmly after a moment. “I mean, under what circumstances would I ever be okay with that? She’s my _colleague_ , Mom. She’s… She’s barely even that. Technically, I’m her boss. It would be inappropriate of me to allow her to live here.”

“Honey, you lived with one of your colleagues for eight and a half years.”

“Because I was _married_ to him.”

“And he was gay, which I took to mean you were basically celibate roommates… Well, not _completely_ celibate.” Mildred nodded in the direction of Annie’s room and raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “Obviously.”

Kerry ignored this and instead rubbed a hand back and forth across her forehead. Then, she shook her head. 

“No. You can…” She closed her eyes. “You can have your little get-togethers and you can look after Suzie overnight sometimes, but she is not moving in. And that’s final. I’m… I’m sorry, Mom, but I have to put my foot down somewhere.”

Kerry threw her hands up defensively before turning down the hallway in the direction of her room. But, she only managed to take a few steps before Mildred’s voice rang out clear behind her. 

_“Kerry Elizabeth, get your butt back in here.”_

Kerry rolled her eyes and clenched both fists, but nevertheless turned back around. 

When she stepped into the kitchen, she found Mildred watching her fiercely. 

“Sit down.”

Despite her better judgement, Kerry took a seat opposite Mildred at the table. 

“Now, do you think that you - and Michael for that matter - would have gotten as far in your careers as you have if I hadn’t been able to move in and help take care of Annie? Do you think you could have managed your residency without the extra help?

“You’re a strong woman, Kerry. That’s how I raised you. But not even you are _that_ strong, my dear. Something would have had to give and I can only hope it was something in your career and not something with Annie.”

Kerry said nothing. Mildred let out a deep breath.

“Kerry, she’s so desperate for help that she’s willing to go back to her family for it. But she doesn’t want to and I don’t blame her. If they’re anything like her sister seems to be, they are not the best choice for the baby.”

There was a moment of silence between them before Mildred took Kerry's hand across the table. She leaned forward, her expression softening slightly. 

“Now, I didn’t bring up my moving in to make you feel guilty or to feel like you owe me anything. That was something I chose to do and I would gladly do again. I brought it up because it’s time to pay it forward. 

“She is in need of our help, my love. And what do we do when someone is in need of our help?”

Kerry looked into her mother’s eyes for a moment and then sighed. 

“What we can.”

Mildred nodded and then squeezed Kerry’s hand tight. 

“Damn right.”

When Mildred had said the basement was finished, she meant it was _finished_. 

Every time Susan walked downstairs, she couldn’t help but think about the plans Mildred said had never panned out, for not only was there a bedroom and bathroom as promised, but a living area and even a small kitchenette with a small fridge and microwave. 

She had a feeling that it was meant to be a mother-in-law suite or even possibly an apartment to rent out, but every time she saw the green of the walls, something in her told her it was meant to be a playroom for Annie. 

Part of Susan was tempted to ask Kerry about what the original plans were, but she thought better of it after seeing her look so stricken the day of the move. 

Though Mildred had assured her that Kerry had agreed to it, Susan figured that even so, Kerry had likely not agreed to two more County General employees coming to help. Susan had asked Mark to assist, but ended up also bringing along Carter, who had not been part of the conversation with Mark but had overheard and offered to help in any way he could. 

Mildred had announced that being over the age of sixty exempted her from carrying boxes and/or furniture, so she instead directed traffic and helped keep those in the house fed and watered. She also kept an eye on Annie, who had been tasked with entertaining Suzie, both in an attempt to keep the baby happy while also staying out from underfoot of the men carrying a dresser down a flight of stairs. 

After everything had been moved in, Mildred treated them all to dinner before they retired to the living room to chat. All except for Kerry, though, who mysteriously disappeared following dinner and only resurfaced to tell Annie it was time for a bath. 

It wasn’t long for everyone else to depart too. Mark and Carter soon said their goodbyes and Mildred bade her goodnight before retiring to her bedroom for the evening. Given Suzie was starting to fall asleep in her bassinet, Susan deemed it was time to take her downstairs too. 

But once Suzie was asleep and she’d showered, Susan found herself wide awake but not yet ready to go to bed. And, worried that using the TV downstairs would wake the sleeping baby, she decided to go upstairs to the living room. Mildred had, after all, reassured her that she was more than welcome to use the shared living spaces. 

Susan made her way upstairs and out of the small laundry room/home office that housed the basement stairs before creeping down the hall towards the couch. But when she stepped into the kitchen, she found someone already sitting in the living room.

“Can I join you?” 

Regardless of how quiet Susan had tried to be, Kerry still jumped where she sat. The most recent copy of the _Annals of Emergency Medicine_ that she had been reading fell out of her hand.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Susan said hesitantly. 

“It’s fine,” Kerry mumbled, picking up the fallen journal. “And yeah. Sure.”

Susan gave a weak smile and took a seat on the opposite couch. Kerry turned her attention back to the journal, but it was clear from her body language that she wasn’t really reading it.

“Since I have you here...” Susan began slowly. “... I was hoping that maybe we could talk.”

“About what?” Kerry asked without looking up. 

“Well, first, I wanted to say thank you. Because I know you like to try to keep work and home separate and this really blurs that… but on behalf of Suzie and I, thank you. This is incredibly helpful to us both and I really appreciate you being willing to let it happen.”

Kerry said nothing and instead just nodded.

“I also wanted to say,” Susan continued, “that I want to start over. And I think this is the time to do it. So… let’s call a truce. We don’t necessarily have to get along at work, but I want to make sure we’re at least okay at home.”

There was a long pause before Kerry sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the couch so she was looking at Susan directly. 

“Sure. We can call a truce.” But before Susan could nod, Kerry continued, “Under one condition.”

Susan’s natural response was to tense, but she willed her muscles to relax. 

“Alright. And what condition is that?”

“I want you to stay away from Annie.”

Susan blinked. 

“What?”

“I want you to stay away from Annie,” Kerry repeated, her voice a little stronger this time. “You can hang out with my Mom and live here and everything, but I want you to stay away from my daughter.”

“But… But why?” When she saw Kerry inhale, Susan quickly added, “Not that I won’t listen. But I don’t understand why. I mean, did I do something? Because if so, I don’t know what it was.”

“You don’t?”

“No,” Susan replied, shaking her head. “What happened?”

“The day in the lounge. With Doug Ross.”

Susan looked at her in confusion. 

“You mean the one from a month ago? Because I apologized for that.”

“Only because you felt you had to.”

Susan forced herself to take a deep breath. 

“I’ll admit that I was still kind of pissed off from our argument over that patient, but I meant it then as I mean it now. I’m sorry.”

Kerry just looked at her for a long moment. 

“You don’t even know why that bothered me, do you?”

“Because we were making jokes about all the ridiculous things you ask us to do?” Susan asked, frustration rising in her voice. “Because we were blowing off some steam? About how much of a bitch you can be at work?”

Kerry inhaled sharply.

“It wasn’t about the jokes,” she said through gritted teeth. “I know I ask a lot of you all. I know I like things done a certain way. I don’t care about _that_ . What I care about was his _impression_ of me.”

It took a second for Susan to figure out where the separation lay between the jokes and the impression. When it clicked, she closed her eyes and heaved a sigh.

“Look, Kerry,” she said in a low voice. “I swear to you, I did not know he picked it up. And if I had, I would have told him to cut it out. But I promise, that was not what we were laughing at.”

“And how was I supposed to know that?” Kerry hissed.

Her expression, though clearly angry, was tinted with hurt. And when she shook her head, Susan could see the faint glint of tears in her eyes.

“I was going to bring Annie in to meet all of you that day. I didn’t want to, but she really wanted to meet all the new doctors and I was going to let her. And then I saw _that?_ There was no way in _hell_ I was going to bring her in after that. Because if you were willing to do that behind my back, then what’s to say you wouldn’t do it to her too?”

“Kerry, we would never do that to her-”

“But you’d do it to me. And if you’re willing to do it once, it’s a slippery slope from there,” Kerry said, cutting her off. “And.... And you know one of the worst parts about it? I’ve worked with Doug Ross before. It didn’t surprise me to catch _him_ acting like an ass, but it _really_ surprised to catch you doing it. Because… Well, let’s just say I had a lot more respect for you before that.”

The regret that had already taken hold in Susan’s chest sent that same sharp shame coursing through her veins. But instead of keeping her quiet, it made her angrier.

“Kerry, if it had bothered you that much, why didn’t you tell Mark?” 

Kerry let out a small scoff of disbelief.

“Do you _know_ how humiliating that would have been? Having to go tell my Attending and having him stare at me confused as to why I was upset?” Kerry said, seething. “All the while knowing you all are rolling your eyes and calling me a tattletale and a snitch. Saying I can’t take a joke - _That wasn’t a joke to me!_ That…. That really hurt me.”

At the last words, the faint sound of a sob crept into her voice. This and the hot, angry tears that had rolled down her cheeks seemed to surprise her just much as they seemed to surprise Susan. 

Because Susan had seen Kerry get angry before, but this was different. There was no passive-aggressive edge in her tone. No frustration, no self-righteous indignation. 

No, this was just plain, honest pain. Real, genuine hurt, which evaporated all of Susan’s anger at once and turned the hot shame into ice. 

“I guess I’m glad you know I _could_ have reported it,” she said quietly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand after a long moment of silence. “Because I haven’t always been able to do that.”

She took a deep breath and shook her head before looking back at Susan. Some of the hurt had been replaced with the previous anger, but the lingering pain was unmistakable.

“Do you know how long I’ve had that right? How long the _Americans with Disabilities Act_ has been around so that I could report something like that and be taken seriously?”

Susan shook her head solemnly.

“Exactly as long as Annie has. She was born the day it was signed,” Kerry stated. “And, you know, I always took that as a _promise_ . A promise that my daughter was not going to go _one_ day of her life without her rights to full participation in society under the law. Rights I didn’t have until I was twenty-nine and countless others before me never saw in their lifetime.

“And I thought… God, I actually thought that maybe, just _maybe,_ she was going to grow up in a different world than I did. A world where this sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore and she wouldn’t have to put up with it. But clearly I was wrong.

“So, welcome. Spend time with my mother. Eat our food. Do whatever you want. But until I’m sure that this will never happen again, stay the hell away from my daughter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sad. This is going to get better, right? Like... they're going to be happy eventually, right? Wait... Why am I asking you?
> 
> I'm kidding, of course. I have it planned out. But we've gotta get through all this first. 
> 
> I was reflecting while writing this chapter that this Kerry feels even more reserved than canon!Kerry... which is _saying_ something. Not just in the manner of not telling her colleagues things about herself, but also in the fact that things like this hit deeper than they even would in canon. And I think they hit pretty deep in canon. It still feels very much like Kerry to me, just sharing more emotion and humanity than we saw a lot of in Season 2 (but saw more of in later seasons). I'd be curious to know what you think, as I'll be honest, I'm a bit worried through this AU that I'm going to accidentally stray too far out of character for her.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you're doing well and I really hope you're enjoying this so far. Until next time. 


	9. What It Says on the Box

Susan shook her head as she neared the room where she’d been informed Doug lay asleep. 

“I told you that you didn’t have to come with me.”

“And who’s going to take Suzie home when the doctor clears her?” Mildred replied, her brow rising.

“But don’t you need to help get Annie off to school?” Susan asked, pausing outside the door. 

But Mildred just waved her away. 

“Kerry is in late today and, besides, it’s six o’clock in the morning. I’ll probably get back before either of them have woken up.”

Susan wasn’t so sure about this (as Kerry had proven herself to be a very early riser), but she gave in nonetheless. Mildred _was_ here already and having her take Suzie home _did_ save Susan a trip back across town.

“Alright. It shouldn’t take long.”

“I’ll wait right here.”

Susan gave her a small smile and went to wake Doug up.

As he set Suzie’s car seat on the table in Trauma One and began looking the baby over, he noticed the older woman watching from just outside the door.

“Who’s your friend?” he muttered as he raised a scope to look inside Suzie’s mouth for the source of the cough Susan reported had kept her up half the night.

“That’s Mildred Weaver. She’s here to take Suzie home once you’re done.”

Doug glanced up sideways at Susan.

“Weaver as in…?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Doug let out a small chuckle and then waved at Mildred, who waved back.

“Well, I think she’s ready to go,” Doug said, straightening up. “Because this is one happy, healthy baby.”

Susan didn’t have a chance to make him double check before she was handing Suzie off to Mildred because of an incoming trauma. She managed to catch Mildred’s promise to wait a few minutes so Susan could say goodbye to Suzie properly once she’d finished up before she was swept into the onslaught of paramedics, nurses, and distraught parents. 

Susan did not, however, catch the way Mildred’s face changed from one of happiness as she cooed at Suzie to utter dread at the sight of the cyanotic infant that rolled past her. And Susan was too distracted by her own dread to realize she was still standing there, watching from the hall, when Doug called the time of death. 

Susan stood there for a long moment, staring at the baby boy, only a few months older than Suzie, dead on the trauma table. But then she heard a familiar gurgling cry and looked up to see Suzie and Mildred still standing there, Suzie reaching for her. 

She was there and had Suzie in her arms before she recognized she’d asked her feet to move. 

Cuddling Suzie to her for a long moment, she finally looked up to see Mildred still staring into the trauma room.

“SIDS. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome,” Susan said quietly. “Exactly what it says on the box.”

Mildred gave a tiny nod, her eyes still fixed on the baby boy on the table. But she said nothing. 

“Mildred?” Susan said, trying to make eye contact with her. “Mildred, are you okay?”

At the sound of her name, Mildred started. 

She looked at Susan, blinking as if surprised to see her there, before she nodded. 

“Yes, yes. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” 

Mildred nodded and waved her away again, but there was no confidence in the action as there was before. She just took Suzie from Susan and muttered a small goodbye before turning for the doors and making her way down the hall.

But no matter what she might have said to the contrary, Susan was quite sure she wasn’t fine, for of course, seeing a baby die would make _anyone_ upset, but… but the sorrow in Mildred’s eyes did not look like shock. It looked like familiarity.

The image was still poking at Susan from the back of her mind when Kerry finally arrived several hours later. 

Kerry was at the desk with Mark when Susan arrived and handed over a sheet of lab results in triumph.

“Reba Siburry’s seizures.”

Mark scanned the sheet, his brow rising. Kerry peered over his shoulder. 

“St. Anne’s gave her a toxic dose of lidocaine?”

“Her level was _nine,”_ Susan said. 

Mark handed the page off to Kerry to read over. 

“This would make a terrific case report,” she remarked as her brow too rose at the results. “Morgenstern is dying to have someone present at the SAEM conference.”

“I could use the credit,” Susan remarked as Kerry considered the paper closer. 

Kerry glanced up at her out of the corner of her eye and, to her surprise, handed the lab results back to her. 

“Hospital pays for the trip.”

“Trip?” Susan asked, frowning as she took the paper back.

“It’s in Miami,” Kerry replied before starting out from behind the desk. As she walked away, Susan heard her mutter, “Lord knows you’ve got the childcare.”

The aside, though frustrating, reminded Susan about that morning. She pushed past Mark just as he remarked that SAEM would be a great opportunity for her so she could chase Kerry down the hall.

She caught up with the Chief Resident with relative ease and gently tapped her on the shoulder. Kerry slowed to a reluctant stop.

“Hey. So, I wanted to ask you about something that happened this morning,” Susan said in a low voice when Kerry finally turned to face her. 

“I was not here this morning.”

Kerry turned as if she was about to keep walking, but Susan laid a hand on her arm to stop her. Had she not been so focused on what was bothering her, she’d have been offended by the way Kerry jerked her arm away so suddenly.

“Yeah, I know. It’s about your mom.” Susan paused for a moment to see if Kerry would try to walk away again. When she didn’t, she continued, “I brought Suzie in this morning because she was up half the night coughing and I wanted Doug to take a look at her. And your mom followed me here so she could take Suzie back.

“And right after Doug said Suzie was fine, I got swept up into a trauma where this little baby who had died of SIDS was rushed in. And… And, well, your mom watched it from the hall and she seemed really shaken when I asked if she was okay. And I just wanted to ask you if… Did that retraumatize her somehow? As in, did she ever have a baby die of SIDS?”

Kerry was quiet for a long moment. Then, she shook her head. 

“My mother never carried a baby to term,” she said in a very, very quiet voice. “But she did miscarry three times. All in the third trimester. One was so far along it was technically considered stillborn.”

Susan nodded slowly, both in affirmation that she’d heard what Kerry had said as well as in understanding as to why Mildred had looked so sad. 

Kerry inhaled deeply and then looked at Susan. 

“It’s why she dislikes hospitals so much,” she remarked simply.

Susan’s brow furrowed as she looked at Kerry.

“She dislikes hospitals,” Susan repeated. 

“Hates them.”

“But… But she seemed fine this morning,” Susan said, thinking out loud “And she seemed fine when she came to visit Annie.”

“Well, she makes exceptions from time to time. For those she…” Kerry exhaled deeply.  
“...cares about.”

Susan’s brow furrowed even further.

“Your mom cares about me?”

“Susan, if my mom didn’t care about you, you wouldn’t be living in my house,” Kerry said, shaking her head as she turned and started down the hall. 

“But she’s…” Susan made to follow Kerry, falling into step next to her. “She’s only known me for two months.”

“And yet you are living in my house,” Kerry said, turning on Susan, who still looked utterly floored. “I don’t understand. Why does this surprise you?”

“It’s just…” Susan took a moment to gather her thoughts. “It’s just that no one in my family is ever so quick to trust like that… Unless you’re Chloe and you’re high off your ass.”

“My mother is quick to _care,_ not quick to trust. There is a _difference_ ,” Kerry stated firmly. “Trust comes later. And only when it’s earned.”

“And what do I have to do to earn your mother’s trust?”

Kerry closed her eyes for a moment.

“Normally, I’d say a lot more than you already have. And yet, I think she’s already beginning to trust you.” Kerry seemed to consider this for a moment before she shrugged. “Maybe she’s going senile in her old age.”

When Susan just stared at her, Kerry stiffened.

“That was a joke. My mother’s cognitive function is fine.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Susan replied, nodding. “So, what do I have to do to earn yours?”

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

“Well, let me know when you do. Because I do. Want to earn it, I mean.” When it was clear Kerry wasn’t going to say anything or elaborate further, Susan just sighed and turned away. But she’d only taken a few steps before she paused and turned back. “And not just for Annie’s sake either.”

Susan had barely stepped foot inside the house that night when her mouth started to water.

“What _is_ that?” she asked as she kicked off her shoes. “It smells delicious.”

“That would be the fried potatoes,” Mildred mused from where she lay on the couch. “Annie and I made latkes earlier this evening.”

“Because it’s the first night of Hanukkah!” Annie added excitedly from her place on the other couch. “I couldn’t go to Daddy’s tonight because he had to work, but Grandma and I lit the candles together.”

Susan nodded and stepped into the living room. She stepped behind the couch where Mildred lay and dropped her voice. 

“I was under the impression that only Annie’s dad was Jewish,” she said slowly. “Are you guys Jewish too?”

“No, we’re not. But between Kerry and Michael being married for so long and us having known the Levins for over twenty years, we’ve picked up a few things,” Mildred explained. “And, of course, that which we don’t know, Annie fills us in on. And speaking of which…”

Mildred lifted her head to glance towards the dining room. Susan looked too and spotted a menorah set on the dining room table. They were long past sundown, meaning the candles had burned out (which happened to be exactly what Mildred had checking on). 

“Alright, Annie, my love,” Mildred said, sitting up with a bit of a groan. “It’s time for bed.”

“But-”

“No buts,” Mildred said, making pointed eye contact with her (sulking) granddaughter. “You promised Momma that you would not argue bedtime if she let you stay up until the candles were gone. So, go brush your teeth and get into bed. I’ll be in in a second to tuck you in.”

Annie knew better than to argue (though she really wanted to). But then, she spotted Susan and perked up. 

“Could Miss Susan tuck me in?” 

Mildred glanced up at Susan and gave a little shrug. 

“If she’d like to, that’s fine with me.”

Annie looked positively gleeful at the prospect, but Susan hesitated.

“I don’t know…” she said slowly, trying to think of how she could deflect this when Kerry had clearly not told Annie nor her mother that which she’d asked of Susan. “Maybe another time…”

_“Please?”_

_God,_ this was hard. Because on the one hand, Susan wanted to respect Kerry’s wishes to stay away from Annie. On the other hand, Annie was looking at her so beseechingly and that, plus her pajamas adorned with bunnies and polka dot socks, was incredibly difficult to say no to.

“I guess I could tuck you in. But just this once,” Susan added quickly as Annie began to cheer. “But you still need to go brush your teeth and get into bed like Grandma asked, okay?”

Annie nodded quickly, sliding off the couch with glee. She threaded her arms through the cuffs of her crutches and crossed the room to give Mildred a hug within seconds and had soon dashed down to the bathroom to finish getting ready for bed.

Once she’d left the room, Susan turned to Mildred, who had risen from the couch and was stretching. 

“When is Kerry supposed to be home?” 

“I’m not sure,” Mildred said, yawning. “Later. Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” Susan replied, shaking her head. “Just wondered.”

“Right. Well, if you’ve got her taken care of, I’m going to retire early myself,” Mildred said. “I had a rather early morning.”

Mildred smiled and squeezed Susan’s arm reassuringly before she started down the hallway herself. Susan watched her go for a moment and then sighed before turning to lock the door. 

Annie was already in bed when Susan stepped into her bedroom.

It was a decent sized bedroom, complete with bed, dresser, bookshelf, and a small desk littered with drawings and books. (Not unlike Kerry’s desk that Susan passed on her way down the stairs each day.) 

There were a few small framed photographs on the desk and dresser as well some larger ones on the walls alongside drawings Annie had made. A painted wooden coat rack hung a kid-height at the foot of the bed, which Annie had chosen not to use for hanging up coats but rather to hang her crutches from each night.

The floor seemed unusually clean for a kid’s room, but Susan figured that was to be expected. The only thing on the floor was a pink dollhouse filled with a diverse array of Barbies underneath the window. Several were scattered around in various states of undress while others were posed inside the house. But what struck Susan as odd was how some of the Barbies appeared to have pipe cleaners half-wound around their wrists.

“What are you looking at?” Annie asked from across the room.

“Just at your Barbies,” Susan replied before turning back to the bed. “What are the pipe cleaners for?”

“Well, back in the summer, for my birthday I asked for a Barbie that had crutches like do. And Momma and Daddy and Grandma and Bubbe and Zayda all looked everywhere, but they couldn’t find any,” Annie explained. “But then when I was at school, we used pipe cleaners for an art project and I realized that I could use those to make some.”

“That’s very clever.” 

Annie beamed at the compliment as Susan rose to pull the desk chair over to the edge of the bed. 

“Alrighty,” she said, sitting down. “How do these usually work?”

“Usually Momma or Daddy or Grandma read me a book or tell me a story,” Annie replied. Then, she shrugged. “Or you could just tuck me in and say goodnight.”

“I think I can manage a book,” Susan said with a small smile.

Annie lit up and prepared herself by snuggling further under the covers and putting her stuffed dog on her head. When Susan, who had just started to get up to go grab something off the bookshelf, saw this, she paused and sat back down.

“Actually,” she said, raising an eyebrow at Annie, “I think I want _you_ to tell me a story.”

“Me to tell you a story?” Annie repeated, confused.

“Well, I’m guessing there’s a story,” Susan admitted. “About why you like to put your dog toy on top of your head.”

“His name is Rex,” Annie informed her. “It’s short for Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

Susan opened her mouth to reply and then closed it, chuckling. 

“Like the dinosaur?”

Annie nodded. 

“Alright,” Susan said, unable to keep herself from smiling at the look of sincerity on the young girl’s face. “Well, I would like to know why you put Tyrannosaurus Rex on your head.”

Annie nodded and then paused for a moment. 

“It started a long time ago. Back when Momma and Daddy were still married,” she began at a slow but thoughtful pace. “Daddy and I were in here picking up toys because we had been playing. And, well, it’s hard to pick things up when I use my crutches because my hands are full. So, usually I tuck things underneath my armpits, but I already had things under my armpits that day, so Daddy decided to put toys on my shoulders and then he put Rex on my head.

“And we were laughing a lot because we thought it was really funny, so Momma came in to find out what we were laughing about and when she saw Rex on my head, she laughed harder than I ever saw. She laughed as hard as _Suzie_ did when he fell off my head that one day,” Annie said, emphasizing the baby’s name to make her point. “And then that night when Daddy was tucking me in, he told me that ever since he first met Momma a long time ago, his favorite thing to do was make her laugh. And he had never seen her laugh that hard either.”

Susan chuckled as the girl’s eyebrows rose and fell with her story. 

“But that was a long time ago. So Momma doesn’t laugh that hard about it anymore,” Annie continued with a small sigh. “But she does still smile when I do it sometimes… And also, it’s easier to carry Rex on my head. Plus, he likes being on my head because it’s what he’s used to.”

Annie glanced up as if waiting for the plush purple puppy to chime in with his approval. He did not (but he didn’t disagree either).

“Well, I’m glad you like to make your Momma smile,” Susan said with a small smile herself.

But to her dismay, Annie’s own smile seemed to fade at this. In fact, Annie herself seemed to be shrinking in on herself at the comment, her expression growing more and more upset.

“Annie, what’s wrong?” Susan asked quickly as the girl began to tear up. 

“Momma doesn’t smile anymore,” Annie replied in a worried voice. “She used to smile a lot and now she doesn’t.”

Susan’s heart clenched uncomfortably, both at the sorrow in the young girl’s eyes but also at the (admittedly selfish) fear that this was a recent development.

“Is that new? Has it been in the past few months?” At Annie’s small shake of her head, the understanding occurred to Susan. “Has it been since Daddy moved out?”

Annie gave an equally tiny nod as a new round of tears began. Automatically, Susan adjusted her chair to start rubbing the girl’s back. 

“Momma and-and-and Daddy were best friends,” Annie said in between crying and taking shaky breaths. “And now they’re not anymore and I think it makes Momma really sad. But sh-she still has to see him when she picks me up o-o-or drops me off at his house.”

“Do you think she’s still in love with Daddy?”

Annie wiped her nose on her shirt sleeve and then shook her head. 

“I think…” Annie swallowed hard. “I think she just misses him.”

Before Susan could say anything, Annie started crying even harder. 

“That’s...Th-That’s why I do things like put Rex on my head,” she said in between sobs. “I-I-I want her to be happy again.”

“Annie, she _is_ happy,” Susan tried to assure her. “You make her very happy. Just… Just because you’re here and she gets to be your Momma.”

Annie continued to cry for a long moment before she took a few shaky breaths. 

“Really?”

“Yes,” Susan said, nodding. “Yes. She… She cares about you a lot. You’re very important to her. I promise you that.”

Susan glanced around to try and find something to help. The best she could do was grab a few tissues out of the box on Annie’s bedside table and hand them to Annie so she could blow her nose. 

It took a few more minutes, but eventually Annie’s breathing started to even out. 

“Annie, have you…” Susan took a deep breath. “Have you ever told your Momma how you feel? That you think she’s sad?”

Annie shook her head, her two braids swinging back and forth against her neck. 

“Why not?”

“Because… Because what if-” Annie made a pained face, her little brow furrowing. “What if she is sad and that just makes her sadder?”

Susan nodded slowly. 

“What if you told your grandma?” Susan suggested. “And she could talk to Momma about it?”

Annie considered this for a long moment and then nodded. She picked up Rex from where he’d fallen off of her head and squeezed him tight to her. 

Susan continued to rub her back for a long moment before pulling her hand away and heaving a sigh.

“I know it’s probably too late, but I don’t want you to go to sleep sad. So, how about we read one quick book. Okay?”

Annie nodded and then quietly requested _Goodnight Moon_. But once she’d laid down and tucked Rex in his place with her under the covers, she barely made it to the red balloon and the picture of the cow jumping over the moon before she was fast asleep. 

Susan placed the book on the bedside table and clicked off the lamp before silently creeping out of the bedroom. 

She backed out of the room into the hallway and exhaled slowly as she pulled the door shut. 

“If you wanted to earn my trust, this is a helluva way to do it.”

Susan jumped and spun around. 

Kerry was standing in the kitchen, watching Susan down the hallway. She must have just gotten home from work as she still had on the same clothes she had been wearing earlier at the hospital.

“Look. I’m sorry,” Susan said automatically as she started towards Kerry. “She asked me to tuck her in and I said no, but she insisted. Which made it pretty clear to me that you didn’t tell her _or_ your mom what you told me.”

Kerry just rolled her eyes and shook her head before turning towards the sink to start loading things into the dishwasher. Susan followed her into the kitchen. 

“And since she nor your mom had been informed of our _conversation,_ it meant that I was either going to have to explain and/or hurt Annie’s feelings to say no. Which I figured was not what you’d want,” Susan explained firmly (though she kept her voice low so as not to wake anyone up). “And also, I’m just gonna say it: She’s really cute and that makes it really hard to say no to her.”

“Well, you’re going to need to learn,” Kerry snapped, not looking up from scraping potato bits out of a cast iron skillet into the trash. 

“Fine. But this once, I think you should be glad I talked to her.”

“I should be pleased that you did exactly what I told you _not_ to do.” Kerry set the skillet down on the counter with more than a little of a _bang_ and turned on Susan, her hand on her hip. “You know, I’ve had a lot of med students and interns tell me that same thing and it never works out very well for them.”

“Yeah, well I don’t think most of those med students or interns would tell you that your daughter thinks that you’re depressed and lonely and that she can’t make you happy.”

Kerry, who had been ready to reply to anything _but_ what Susan had just said, stiffened. In an instant, Susan could see the frustration in her eyes replaced with sadness. 

Perhaps Annie had been right.

“She said what?”

“I asked her to tell me why she likes to put her stuffed dog on her head. And it boiled down to the fact that she says doing it makes you smile. But when I told her that it was nice that she liked to make you smile, she started crying,” Susan explained, albeit in a far less fierce tone than she’d used a second ago. “She thinks that you haven’t been happy since your divorce and that you miss your ex-husband. And… and I think she blames herself for your missing him because she’s the reason you have to see him.”

Kerry said nothing, but just looked at her, brow furrowed and mouth slightly agape in surprise. And sorrow. 

Susan heaved a sigh. 

“She said she puts Rex on her head because she wants to make you happy again. And I tried to assure her that she makes you happy just by being around… but I think that might mean more coming from you.”

Kerry gave a tiny nod reminiscent to Susan of the one Annie had given earlier. 

“Is… Is that it?” Kerry asked finally after a long moment of silence as she processed all that Susan had said. 

“Yeah. That’s it.”

Kerry nodded again.

“Thank you.”

Susan paused for a moment to see if this was enough to finally earn Kerry’s trust, but even if it were, there was no way to tell given the look on Kerry’s face. So, she just turned away and started the long trek downstairs. 

“Oh. Um, Susan?”

Susan paused and looked back, raising her eyebrows in question. 

“Yeah?”

“There’s a card for you on the table,” Kerry said, pointing towards the dining room. “It came to the ER, but it had your name on it, so I brought it home.”

“Who’s it from?” Susan asked as she turned back for the envelope. 

“I don’t know. There was no return address.”

Susan nodded absently as she picked up the envelope from the table and turned back for the hallway. She bade Kerry goodnight and turned the envelope over in her hands, trying to figure out if the handwriting on the front looked familiar. 

Her attention was drawn away from the envelope for a brief moment so she could check on Suzie, who was sleeping peacefully in her crib. But as soon as she took a seat on the bed and had the chance to slip a fingernail under the paper, she was struck with a feeling of dread. Which only became worse when she realized that, while she didn’t recognize the handwriting on the envelope, she _did_ recognize the handwriting on the inside of the card. 

But that wasn’t what filled her with dread. That honor went to the $3,000 cash that fell out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yowzah. This was a very long chapter. But we're getting where we need to go, so it's worth it. 
> 
> I'll say that it writing this chapter was suprisingly emotional for me, namely when Annie breaks down. Aside from the sadness of seeing a kid cry, it brought up some Child Of Divorce feels that I didn't even know existed. My parents have been separated since I was six, which was so long ago I can't really even remember them ever being together. I don't remember the separation either or how I felt about it, but when I was working out the dialogue and I got to the part about Annie wanting to make her mom happy again choked me up in a way I really wasn't expecting.
> 
> I'm looking forward to the next chapter. I've been working it out in my head for a while and I can say that it brings some peace _and_ provides a lot of background on some things. And yesterday, I finished mapping out the pace and flow of this entire story and I'm pumped for what's to come. Some things are going to be familiar while other things are going to be very different. But I'm hoping that it's entertaining nonetheless. 
> 
> I think this is going to end up longer than the other AU. Partly because I'm planning my pacing better, but also because I started earlier in the show and will be ending later in the show than the other one. 
> 
> Anways, I hope you're having a good day so far! And I really hope that you're enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it.
> 
> Until next time.


	10. A Good Man

“What if it’s illegal? What if… What if it’s from drugs? Oh, God. I’ve touched it. If it _is_ from drugs, could I get in trouble for keeping it? Or-or spending it? And, for the love of all that is good, is this considered _‘meaningful contact’?”_

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a long moment. So long in fact that, for a second, Susan was sure he’d fallen asleep.

“Susan, it’s one-thirty in the morning,” Mark said groggily.

“I _know,”_ Susan whined. “But everyone else is asleep and now _I_ can’t sleep and I couldn’t think of who else to call.”

“Well, as much as I appreciate being your go-to call when you’re losing your mind,” he said with a yawn. “I’m on at seven.”

Susan sighed and sat back down on her bed. 

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” She laid back down against her pillow. “I’ll call you later.”

“Okay. I’m off at seven tonight if you still want to talk.”

“Great. I’ll call you then.”

The line went dead before Susan had even pulled the phone away from her ear, no doubt because Mark had slammed it down before immediately falling back asleep.

Susan put the phone back down on the receiver and caught sight of Chloe’s card and the money on the side table.

It had already managed to preoccupy her thoughts for the last several hours, rendering her unable to do anything but pace and fruitlessly try to sleep. She’d given in and called Mark because she needed to talk to _someone,_ and the thought of waking up Mildred or, God forbid, _Kerry_ , was enough to keep her in the basement.

Susan let out a huff and yanked open the side table drawer. She swept the card and the stack of hundred dollar bills into it before (almost) slamming it shut. 

But not even trapping the source of her distress in the drawer, turning off the lamp, and burying her face in the pillow was enough to allow her to sleep. She tossed and turned, in and out of fitful sleep, until finally she was awakened by Suzie’s cries. 

Yawning, she scooped the almost-six-month-old into her arms and set about starting the day. 

She wasn’t on until this evening, meaning that she might be able to get in a nap when she put Suzie down later. But, given that Kerry wasn’t on until this afternoon, it meant she was inevitably going to retreat back to the basement after talking with Mildred at breakfast so as not to have to sit uncomfortably in the same room as her for too long.

When Susan arrived in the kitchen, she found Mildred, Kerry, and Annie already at the table. Someone had made eggs and sausage, which Susan grabbed a plate of after putting Suzie in her high chair. 

“Good morning, Susan, dear,” Mildred greeted. “There’s fresh coffee too if you’d like some.”

Susan gave her a grateful smile, but a knock on the door distracted them all before it could be received. 

Kerry stood up and opened the door without checking who it was first. And given the fact that the man who stepped inside bore a vague resemblance to the five-year-old at the table who eagerly said his name the moment she saw him, Susan figured this must be Kerry’s ex-husband. 

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

“There’s my girl!” Michael said happily as he scooped Annie up in his arms and kissed her on the cheek. “How ya doin, kiddo?”

“Good. Flip me!” Annie asked excitedly, before catching her mother’s eye and quickly adding, “Please?”

“Flip you? Alright. But you’ve got to put those down first.”

Annie immediately slid her arms out of her crutches, which clattered to the floor beneath her, so Michael could hold onto her arms and flip her over. Her feet had no sooner touched the floor than she asked him to do it again, which Kerry put the kibosh on with one look at both of them.

“Perhaps, next time,” Kerry said, raising an eyebrow at Michael, “we _don’t_ drop the $200 worth of medical equipment from five feet in the air.”

“Sorry,” Michael said with a bit of a sheepish smile before leaning over to give her a half-hug. Then, he turned back to Annie. “Okie doke, kiddo. You got everything?”

“My bag is still in my room.”

“Okay. Go get your bag then.” When Annie took off in the direction of her room, he called out after her, “And your coat too.”

“Coat’s behind you,” Mildred said, nodding at the rack to the right of the door.

Michael turned to look for it before stepping behind the table to give Mildred a hug. 

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hello, dear,” Mildred greeted, patting his cheek. “How are you?”

“Pretty good,” Michael replied, straightening up. “Looking forward to today. Adam got the three of us tickets to go see the ice show downtown, so that should be fun.”

“Ah, yes. Annie was telling us about that,” Mildred said, nodding. “And how is Adam doing?”

Mildred’s smile grew into a smirk as Michael grew a bit pink around the ears. 

“He’s doing well. Out of the school for the holidays so he’s been… over a lot more.”

“I’m glad to hear it. He sounds like a lovely fellow. And Annie certainly seems to like him.”

Suzie let out a frustrated sound at the fact that Susan had been distracted from feeding her by Michael’s arrival.

Michael (who had blushed even further under Annie’s apparent approval of Adam) looked around confused for a moment before spotting Susan. 

“Oh, hi. I’m Michael,” he said, stepping forward to shake Susan’s hand. “I’m, uh, Annie’s dad. But you probably already knew that.”

“I did. But it’s good to meet you,” Susan said with a smile. “I’m Susan and this is Suzie.”

“Ah, yes. Annie has been keeping me up to date. Especially about Suzie.”

“Because Suzie’s really cute,” Annie stated as she came back in, a _Sesame Street_ duffel bag over her shoulder. “And she really likes it when I sneeze Rex off my head.”

“When you sneeze Rex off your head?” Michael repeated, his brow raised. “Well, I look forward to you showing me how you sneeze Rex off your head later. Right now, we need to get your coat on. And you need to give hugs.”

Annie nodded once and then handed the bag off to Michael, who then assisted her with putting her coat on. Once situated, she gave everyone hugs in turn, starting with Mildred before then hugging Susan (who could feel the heat of Kerry’s stare throughout the entire hug) before finally hugging Kerry, who knelt down to receive it.

“I love you,” Kerry murmured as she released Annie from the hug. She kissed Annie on the cheek before leaning back to adjust her hat. “Be good for Daddy.”

“I’m always good for Daddy.”

“Mm-hmm. _Sure,”_ Michael stage whispered in their direction

When Annie turned on him, her eyes narrowed, he feigned ignorance and then proceeded to let her chase him out onto the porch. He leaned in and waved goodbye before pulling the door shut and joining Annie on a race to the car.

“Well, then,” Mildred said at once, clapping her hands and standing up. “That’s my cue to be off too.”

“Where are you going?” Kerry asked as she stood up.

“I’ve got a little bit of Christmas shopping to finish up,” Mildred informed her as she carried her plate to the car. “And a little bit of Christmas _wrapping_ too. Which has been very hard to get done with little miss hanging about.”

She glanced at Susan over the rim of her glasses as she passed her on the way to the sink.

“The girl is proudly and ardently Jewish… _except_ on Christmas morning.”

Susan chuckled as she spooned a little bit of Gerber carrots (read: mush) into Suzie’s mouth, a task she focused on for several minutes until she heard the front door close, leaving her alone with Kerry. 

Kerry disappeared into her room for a few minutes before returning with a box of holiday cards to seal and address. She settled at the dining room table, seemingly pretending that Susan and Suzie were not there.

“Michael seems nice,” Susan said after a long moment as she moved from carrot mush to a bottle for Suzie.

“Yes. He is,” Kerry replied without looking up. 

“Your mom said that you guys have known him for twenty years?”

Kerry exhaled through her nose.

“Yes. We grew up across the street from each other,” she explained as she wrote an address out on the envelope in front of her (which just happened to be to the senior Levins). “Our families were good friends.”

“So, you guys were childhood sweethearts?” 

“Oh, no, no. We were just… just very good friends. We didn’t start dating until college.” Kerry looked up, seemingly in thought. “I honestly don’t really remember how it happened. I think everyone just assumed we were dating, so we just went ahead and did so.”

Susan nodded.

“Well, it’s good that you guys still get along. For Annie’s sake.”

“Yes, though it’s not just for Annie’s sake. We still do get along very well,” Kerry said, looking back down at the envelope to finish the address. “He’s a very good man. He always has been. But… But I didn’t know exactly how good of a man he was until Annie was born.”

It occurred to Kerry a moment after saying this how much it sounded like the beginning of a story. And when she glanced up at Susan, she found the other woman watching her expectantly.

Kerry set down her pen and closed her eyes for a second. When she finally opened them, she let out a great sigh. 

“My parents didn’t know about my hip until I was a toddler. And at the time and at the age I was when they found out about it, the only option for treatment was surgery. My parents opted against that, which I never blamed them for, though it did set up a precedent in all our minds that, had we caught it sooner, it could have been treated. After Annie was born, I kept this in mind and paid very close attention as she grew. But even paying that close of attention, it still didn’t show up until she was about the same age I was. 

“And we’d come a ways in medicine, so surgery was not the _only_ option there was. But to even start the treatment process, she needed an arthrogram. So we could… So we could see exactly what we were working with. But it wasn’t ten minutes after they injected the dye into the joint that we realized she had a bag allergy to contrast dye. She got a terrible rash all over her chest and her arms. No anaphylaxis, thank _God_ , but I could still hear her wheezing.”

Kerry paused and took a sip from her cup of coffee. Susan took the opportunity to pick Suzie up from the high chair and sit her down on her lap as she took a seat opposite Kerry at the table.

“The problem with the allergy,” Kerry continued once Susan was situated, “was that that meant we weren’t able to do a closed reduction, because the arthrogram was used to guide the reduction. Meaning that, even though there _were_ other options, our first - and only - option was surgery.

“And Michael is a surgeon and he had just finished up a rotation with a very well-renowned pediatric surgeon. So, he went to him and asked for recommendations of colleagues that we could consult with. Pediatric orthopedic surgeons, I mean. Who could perform the operation. But when Michael explained what we were looking for, the surgeon told us we didn’t need an orthopedist for that. Any general pediatric surgeon could do an open reduction.

“And we were… very leary about it. But he insisted, going so far as to describe the approach he would use in detail. Michael and I then did a lit review and found that the medial approach he had described where they’d make an incision in the groin and clear out any tissue before reducing the joint _was_ supported by the literature. So, we moved forward with it. My parents flew in and his parents flew in. And since Michael had done the rotation, they let him scrub in on it.”

Kerry took another sip of her coffee, but this time, Susan was sure the pause was also meant to steel herself to continue recounting the story. And, sure enough, Kerry took a deep breath before she continued on.

“According to Michael, when they made the incision and looked inside, it was clear that it wasn’t tissue that was occluding the joint; it was bone. The only thing they’d seen on the x-ray was some kind of occlusion, but they couldn’t tell what it was without the contrast. It turned out that the joint was malformed and even clearing out what little tissue they could from it, they were not going to be able to reduce it. 

“So, he figured that they would do just that: Clear out what they could, close, and regroup later. But while they were standing there, the surgeon decided that she needed an osteotomy to start reshaping the bone of the pelvis and the femur so that they could successfully reduce the joint.”

Kerry sucked in air. When she spoke again, Susan could tell she was gritting her teeth.

“But, you see, that was well beyond his scope of practice and not _just_ because the literature we looked at said that the medial approach was _not_ to be used for bone surgery. Only the _anterior_ approach was. But even that aside, we didn’t consent to bone surgery. We consented to a reduction. And when Michael brought that up and told them to stop, they kicked him out.”

“They kicked out of the surgery?” Susan repeated in disbelief. “Because he told them that they were performing a procedure that he didn’t have permission for?”

Kerry nodded. 

“We were all waiting in recovery and… and when he came out looking distraught, still in his scrubs… I was sure she was dead. And-and that was what held my parents back from it. They didn’t want to send me into surgery and for me never to come out and… and in that moment, I thought that was what I did to her.”

Kerry took another sip of coffee, albeit a shakier one than the ones before. When she set down the mug, Susan unconsciously took her hand across the table (though neither of them really seemed to notice this).

“He explained what happened and then immediately turned and stormed off to the Chief of Surgery’s office. He pulled him out of his meeting and demanded that he go down to the Operating Room and make them stop before he called the police. 

“And, to Art’s credit, he tried to talk Michael down first. To see if he could parse out what was going on. But eventually, he gave in and went down to stop the surgery. But by the time he got there, they were too far in and we had to wait until they were at a place to stop. And then, we waited.

“She was in a spica cast from her chest down to her knees for two months so the bones could heal. And… And they told us that when she started walking again that-that she was going to limp for a while. Between being immobilized in the cast and the surgery changing the joint, it could take a while for her gait to change. 

“But I remember sitting in the physical therapist’s office… Michael and I were both sitting on the floor so she could walk between us and I remember the therapist looking at her closely and then saying, ‘She should not be that stiff.’ And- and the thing was…. I already knew. When I changed her diaper or did some of the exercises with her, some of the movements hurt her in a way that… that was beyond the healing process.

“So, we did more imaging as best we could and…” Kerry made an expression of deepest pain. “And it was a mess. It was.... It was even worse than it was when we started and-and that was saying something. Some of the places where they’d tried to reshape the bone had healed unevenly and they failed to make adjustments to how they were going to reduce it, so it wasn’t articulated correctly and then healed that way in the cast…”

Susan rubbed unconscious circles on the back of Kerry’s hand with her thumb as the latter squeezed her eyes shut, pressing fingers into her forehead as she willed herself not to break down.

“Did… Did you sue?” Susan asked quietly. “The surgeon, I mean?”

There was a moment before Kerry nodded. 

“It hadn’t even crossed my mind,” she replied in a low voice. “But it was apparently Michael’s first phone call after she woke up.”

Kerry took another deep breath before sniffing a few times and rubbing at her eyes. Then, she shook her head. 

“And he suffered for it. I mean, he’s a surgeon. And a damn good one, at that. He had been looking at fellowships and specializations… And they blackballed him. No one would hire him. The only reason he has a job now is because Art Feldstein recognizes integrity when he sees it.” Kerry gave a small shrug. “Though they do both go to the same temple, so there’s a chance their rabbi got involved. I don’t know.

“What I do know is that, when we were sitting there waiting to give the deposition, I asked him if it was worth it. That… You know, she’d be fine either way. Did he really want to go through with it… And he replied very simply that he would ‘happily be a stay-at-home dad forever if it meant that piece of shit got what he deserved.’ And… And I knew he was serious, because he doesn't talk that way.”

“And did you win?”

“Yeah,” Kerry replied with a shrug. “He never should have convinced us he could do it and he _definitely_ shouldn’t have gone beyond what was consented. Plus, it was clear that his defense attorney was operating under the ‘These people aren’t doctors, they don’t know what they’re talking about’ defense, which, of course, didn’t work.”

Kerry let out a sigh. 

“Most of the money won went towards legal fees, but she’s got a little bit tucked away for her when she turns eighteen. But it doesn't really matter. It doesn’t make up for the fact that they hurt my baby. Or the fact that they took away my willingness to consent her to surgery again. 

“Because I was convinced once. I could have been convinced again. But not now. Now, even… even with the best surgeon with the most experience, I wouldn’t be able to trust that they weren’t going to hurt her again.”

At the sight of the sorrow in Kerry’s eyes, Susan found herself thinking about Mark. He was preparing for the deposition in the O’Brien case that was coming up in a few days about the mother with preeclampsia that Mark had failed to recognize in time to save her. 

It was funny, she thought, how trained doctors were to recoil at the thought of a malpractice suit. How much their discussion of it blamed the patients. How defensive they were about their choices and how much losing could hurt their career and how seldom they stopped to think about how the patients or their families felt and how much they had to hurt to be willing to relive it for the sake of a court case.

Kerry stared off in the distance for a moment, biting her lip.

“My mother thinks I feel guilty… and-and-and I do,” she thought aloud. “That I didn’t do my due diligence. That I trusted him. And because… because I gave to her. Because, _yes,_ it’s technically a congenital birth defect, but it _just happens_ to be much more likely if a first-degree relative has it? I mean, come on. I’m not stupid.

“But in this case, that’s reassuring to me. Because I’ve seen my own imaging. I know what my hip looks like. So, I wouldn’t have been surprised if we reached a point where we said that the risk of surgery outweighed the potential benefit. That continuing to try and treat it was not adding anything to quality of life. I would have understood that… But we’ll never know.”

She inhaled deeply and then exhaled. 

“My mother also thinks I’m overprotective of her because I’m ashamed that she’s disabled. And I’m _not,”_ she said with a bitter bite in her tone. “Because… Because I don’t _care._ If she’s able-bodied, okay. If she’s disabled, okay. Whatever it is, it is what it is, and what it is is her and she’s my baby and she’s perfect to me no matter what.”

Tears were now streaming down Kerry’s cheeks, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away.

“What bothers me is that…. That since she _is_ disabled, that means she is going to have to put up with the shit that comes with the territory. And I don’t want her to put up with the shit, because _I_ have put up with the shit and it is exactly _that_ . It is _shit_. 

“And sometimes I wonder if she had to put up with the shit or… or even the _possibility_ or shit, if he had done what we asked him to do.”

It was at this point that Susan realized she was holding Kerry’s hand. She looked at it for a moment as if surprised as to how it had gotten there, before she gave one last squeeze and let go. Kerry didn’t seem to notice, though, and instead just wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.

Then, to Susan’s surprise, Kerry let out a hiccuping chuckle. 

“She doesn’t remember any of it. And even if she did, I don’t think she’d care. Because she _doesn’t_ care. She loves her crutches, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, and… And she likes that using them makes her like Momma.” Kerry stared at the corner of the table for a long moment and then heaved one last sigh. “I just wonder sometimes if she had to be.”

Susan closed her eyes and unconsciously hugged Suzie tighter to her. 

“Kerry, I am so sorry,” Susan said she opened her eyes. At the way Kerry’s brow furrowed slightly, Susan quickly continued, “Not because of Annie, though… Though, I am sorry about that. But I’m mostly sorry about the shit and having contributed to the shit.”

Susan exhaled deeply and, this time, _consciously_ took Kerry’s hand. 

“When you called me out the night I moved in,” Susan began slowly, “I felt very defensive. But I think that I felt that way because I knew you were right. We… _I_ crossed a line that day in the lounge. And it’s not a line I’m comfortable crossing with you or anyone else… No matter how of a bitch you can be at work, it’s not okay. And I’m very sorry that I hurt you and I’m very, very sorry that you didn’t feel like you could bring Annie in to meet us after that.”

Kerry bit her lip and then, in a very small voice, muttered, “Thank you.”

Susan nodded sincerely. She squeezed Kerry’s hand again before letting go once more. 

“And as far as Annie wanting to be like Momma… I mean, why wouldn’t she?” Susan continued with a small smile. “I mean, think about her Barbies. She couldn’t find one that looked like her, so she made one, but she doesn’t have to do that with role models, because she has you. And you’re a doctor and a damn good one at that. So, why wouldn’t she want to be like you?”

Kerry smiled weakly though she looked like she was about to cry again. 

“Thank you.”

“Of course. She’s really lucky to have you and Michael. Because I’m sure a lot of times the shit starts at home,” Susan said sincerely. “I mean… She’s very lucky to have parents who love and care about her as much as you do.”

“Thank you,” Kerry said with a small nod of her own. “Suzie is lucky to have that too.”

“Are you kidding?” Susan asked rhetorically, rolling her eyes. “Suzie deserves much better than Chloe and whoever guy-of-the-week was.”

“I’m not talking about Chloe. I’m talking about _you,”_ Kerry said, shaking her head. “Not all aunts would step up for their nieces the way you have for Suzie. And… no matter what happens as far as adopting her, as long as you’re part of her life, she’s going to be okay.”

It was Susan’s turn to smile while also looking like she was about to cry. 

“Does this mean you trust me?” 

Kerry inhaled deeply and then nodded. 

“Yes. I trust you,” she said quietly. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I ever _stopped_ trusting you.”

Susan narrowed her eyes slightly, but chuckled softly nonetheless. 

“I figured that may be the case when I realized that you didn’t tell your mom or Annie what you told me,” Susan admitted. “Though it’s nice to be sure.”

Kerry rolled her eyes, but said nothing to the contrary. She just paused as if thinking before her shoulders dropped slightly as if she was about to admit something she didn’t want to.

“And… I’m sorry that I’ve been so much of a bitch at work. I mean, I’m _not._ But I am.” Kerry looked at Susan, frowning slightly. “Does that make sense?”

Susan let out a laugh. 

“Um… no. But I think I know what you mean,” she said, smiling broadly. 

“If it makes you feel any better, I only go so hard on you because I know you can take it,” Kerry offered. 

“That does _not_ make me feel better,” Susan stated (though she continued to smile). “Actually, it almost makes it worse somehow?”

“Well, if I didn’t think you had potential, I wouldn’t be pushing you so hard to reach it,” Kerry said in a voice that was _almost_ defensive. 

“You think I have _potential_ ,” Susan said, raising an eyebrow. “Meaning you don’t think there’s anything good _already.”_

“Quite the contrary. I think Mark’s right. You are one of the best doctors I’ve seen in awhile,” Kerry replied simply. “I think you have the potential to be even better.”

Susan’s natural reaction was too be suspicious of such praise. But, given the candor between them in the last twenty minutes, she wasn’t so sure she should be suspicious this time.

“And,” Kerry continued with a small shrug. “If you were willing to put up with it, I’d be happy to groom you to be the next Chief Resident. If you wanted that, that is.”

“It’s December,” Susan said, her brow furrowing. “We won’t be looking for a new Chief Resident until next summer.”

“Meaning if I started grooming you now, by then, you’ll be a shoe-in.”

“Well, Kerry, the last time we had a shoe-in for Chief Resident, we ended up with you instead,” Susan said pointedly. 

“And did Mark groom that person for six months?” Kerry asked as she took a sip of her coffee. When Susan rolled her eyes, she just smirked. “There you go.”

Susan rolled her eyes and looked down at Suzie, who had been sitting rather quietly watching the grownups talk from Susan’s lap with that pure captivation unique to babies. She leaned her head down to kiss Suzie on the top of the head, earning her a happy gurgle.

“Would you get anything out of grooming me to be Chief Resident?” Susan asked, glancing up at Kerry over Suzie’s head. “Like a ‘I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine’ sort of thing?”

“I mean, if it helps me should something come open at County, then I’d be okay with that,” Kerry admitted. “Though, even if it didn’t, so long as County gets a good Chief Resident out of it, then I’d be okay with that too.”

“Really?” Susan narrowed her eyes. “You’re serious?”

“Mm-hmm. Mostly because it’s all part of my master plan to take over the hospital and install women in every position of authority,” Kerry replied with a smirk. 

“Your master plan?” Susan repeated, though not in disbelief (as, frankly, this really didn’t surprise her, all things considered). “And how many steps are there to this ‘Master Plan’ of yours?”

Kerry thought for a moment. 

“Eight.”

“And what step are we on now?”

“Four.”

“And, let me guess...” Susan tapped her chin as she pretended to muse on the thought. “...Step Eight is you as Chief of Staff?”

“No, Step Eight is my retirement. Step _Seven_ is me as Chief of Staff,” Kerry said with a grin. “I mean, think about it. We’ve got Obstetrics pretty much locked down. And we’ve got a good head start on Family Medicine, Psychiatry, and Pediatrics. 

“So, if we take the ER, then next we go to Surgery, which will admittedly be pretty hard because it’s an Old Boys Club. _But,_ there are a lot of very gifted female surgeons out there - many of whom are _also_ bitches - that I think I can rally to the cause.”

The thought that had clearly been put into the so-called Master Plan and the confidence with which it was said made Susan laugh. 

“Alright. You can groom me to be the new Chief Resident,” she said after a long moment. “But _only_ to fulfill the Master Plan.” 

Kerry put her hands up in resignation.

“I can live with that.”

(Susan was pretty sure she couldn’t, but didn’t remark upon it.)

Suzie, however, _did_ comment on it through one sharp cry indicating she was tired of just sitting there. So, Susan stood up and carried her over to the Pack-n-Play that now had a permanent home in the living room. 

Once Suzie was situated, Susan turned back to the table and let out a sigh. 

“Okay, one last thing,” she said as she crossed back to the kitchen. “I know that you try and keep things really separate between home and work and that everything about my being here has blurred that line. What I want to know is, now that we’ve had this talk, do we need to un-blur the line or can we keep it like this going forward?”

Kerry thought on this for a long while.

“We can keep it like this going forward.”

“Okay, good,” Susan said, nodding. “And last question: Can I hug you? Or would that be way too far out of the comfort zone?”

Kerry thought on this even longer. Then, she gave in with a sigh.

“Yes. You can hug me,” she agreed as she rose to her feet. But then she raised her hands. “But just this once.”

“That’s fine with me,” Susan agreed. 

She stepped closer to where Kerry was standing, allowing her to broach the last few inches of her own regard. But when she did, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around Susan, it was not lost on either of them how well they seemed to fit together. Though not exceptionally different in height, there was something about the way their bodies almost seemed like they were _meant_ to hug each other. 

And when they finally did pull away after a moment much longer than either of them had realized, it _was_ lost on both of them that perhaps saying they were fine with this only happening once might just be a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, hello again! It's a holiday weekend in the US during (now unfortunately _unofficial)_ quarantine, so I'm just churning out the content for you guys. 
> 
> Alas, we finally have peace as well as quite a bit of backstory and more examples of why Michael is just a Very Nice [Insert Age Here] Man. And, of course, hints at what's to come. Which, I know I said it hopefully won't be over 100 pages into my Google Doc, but these chapters are so long that it's probably gonna be. But we're up to 86 pages, so it's coming I promise!
> 
> I was particularly excited to write this chapter because it was when we'd finally get past the frustration, but also because I wanted to describe in detail how Kerry frames Annie. One of the biggest things I learned from my class this spring was the concept of "frames" and how different members of a family often frame a problem differently. We've already gotten Mildred's frame of Kerry (shame) and Annie's frame of Kerry (sadness), so it was Kerry's turn to frame herself (overprotective and guilty), her mother (misguided), and Annie (perfect). I also felt that, given the fact that Kerry is willing to treat Charlie's hip in "uc" that the fact that Annie uses crutches in this lends itself to the idea that either that treatment did not work or that they did not treat it at all, so I wanted to clarify that as well. 
> 
> I hope you guys are enjoying and that the weather wherever you are is as nice as it is here. I took a long walk as a writing break and came back with a sun tan. It was lovely. 
> 
> Have a good rest of your day! Until next time. 


	11. Curveball

It was a good thing that the envelope containing the card and money that had been sitting in Susan’s purse for what was now almost a month and a half was not susceptible to spontaneous psychic combustion, for if it was, the amount of time she spent thinking about it would surely have set it alight, rapidly increased in intensity, and then engulfed everything she (or anyone else for that matter) owned in a monstrous ball of flame.

Truth be told, it  _ hadn’t _ been in her purse the entire time. For most of the time since Kerry had brought it home from the ER for her, it had lived in that side table drawer as Susan got input from various individuals as to what she could and/or should do with it. However, given that her answers ranged from “I don’t know” to “I can’t really say” to Mark’s “I’m sorry, Susan, but I just can’t deal with this right now,” and eventually found Susan asking a patient who was a cop about the legality of the situation, she decided it was best to just bring her to the meeting today.

“Susan Lewis?” 

Susan looked up to see a Latina woman of about forty peek her head out of the door. When she spotted Susan, she gave her a soft smile and opened the door further for Susan to follow her inside. 

“Good morning. My name is Elena Ferrera and I am the supervisor of the case managers in this division,” she explained as Susan took a seat opposite her. “I know I’m not your usual case manager, but Jackie called in sick this morning and asked me to take this meeting. She said you have a…  _ difficult  _ schedule at times.”

“That’s true. And I appreciate that you could meet with me in her place.”

“Of course,” Elena said, inclining her head. She interlaced her fingers together under her chin. “Now, as supervisor, I’ve discussed all the cases at length, but just to make sure, you have temporary custody of your niece following your sister’s unplanned absence?”

“Uh, yes, ma’am. Suzie has been in my care since August 17th of last year.” Susan took a deep breath. “That’s actually why I’m glad we were able to keep this meeting, as Jackie had indicated that we were going to start discussing next steps in custody. Seeing as next week will make six months since Chloe left.”

Elena’s brow furrowed. 

“And what relevance does six months have on the next steps of custody?” 

The only thing about the question that did not immediately set Susan spiraling was that Elena sounded legitimately curious and not in any way accusatory.

“I was under the impression,” Susan began slowly, “that I can claim abandonment at six months. And then get permanent custody.”

Elena considered Susan closely for a moment and then closed her eyes and let out a sigh. 

“I’m sorry, Ms…. I’m sorry. I mean, Dr. Lewis,” she said, correcting herself when she caught sight of the title on the paperwork in front of her. “But you were misinformed.”

“I was misinformed?” Susan said, her eyes widening in fear.

“I’m afraid so,” Elena said, frowning. “Parental rights cannot be terminated in the state of Illinois until  _ twelve _ months have passed without consistent and quality attempts at caring for the child.”

Susan felt her heart drop out of her chest (which was odd, considering it was also beating so hard that it made it hard to breathe).

“So… So, I have to wait until Chloe has been gone for an entire  _ year?” _

“Yes,” Elena confirmed. “Technically, it would be a year from when you filed for custody, but it appears that you did that rather quickly, so there won’t be much of a difference there.”

“But what happens if Chloe comes back in the next six months?” Susan asked, her words growing faster as her anxiety grew. 

“Do you think that’s likely?” Elena asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“I don’t know. But what if she did? What would happen then?”

“Well, if your sister were to return and wanted to regain custody of Suzie before you had filed for permanent custody, then we would begin a case plan with a goal of reunification.”

Susan stared. 

“You would give her back?” she asked in a tiny voice. “You would just give her back?”

“It wouldn’t be that simple,” Elena said quickly, trying (and failing) to negate some of Susan’s worry. “We would set up supervised visitation with your sister, but your niece would remain in your care. As well, you have reported that your sister has a history of drug use, including use the night she left. In that case, we’d probably require drug tests periodically for a certain period of time before custody would be returned.”

“And how long would she have to get her act together?”

“Two years from the start of the case plan.”

Susan blinked. 

“Two years?” she repeated, anger rising in her tone. “You’d give her  _ two years _ to get her act together?”

“Our primary goal in child welfare cases is reunification with the biological parents,” Elena informed her in a firm but apologetic voice. “We aim for the parents to successfully and safely regain custody of the children within two years.”

“And what happens if she doesn’t?” Susan set her jaw. “We have to start this all over again?”

“No,” Elena answered, shaking her head. “We would have two simultaneous plans working during those two years. The primary plan would be reunification and the secondary plan would be alternative custody, such as with a family member.”

Susan sat back in her chair. Her anxiety felt like a revolving door with one side wanting to cry and the other to fight.

“You should have been informed of all of this when your case began,” Elena pointed out, narrowing her eyes. “Did Jackie not review this with you?”

Susan couldn’t remember. The first few days after Chloe left were such a blur that she couldn’t say for sure what the case manager did or didn’t say.

So, despite the guilt that the action would accrue in her heart, Susan shook her head. 

“Ah. Well, I will have a word with Jackie upon her return,” Elena said, nodding.

Susan said nothing for a long moment, leading Elena to just nod again and continue on. 

“Now, there is one thing that came up in supervision that I was curious about. And since I have you here…” She moved a few papers around until she found the case note she was looking for. “Jackie says that you moved residences in November? Is that correct?”

Susan was so distracted by the reverberations of the fact that she couldn’t adopt Suzie for six more months that she didn’t register herself nodding.

“Could you explain why? Are you living with other family members?”

At the words “family members,” Susan was pulled back to the present.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“I asked if your move back in November was into the home of other family members or if it was for another reason?”

As Elena repeated the question, she picked up a pen and shuffled a different piece of paper to the front of her pile. Susan couldn’t tell what it said from the distance away at which she sat (and at the fact that the page was upside down), but she could make out a few hand drawn symbols and lines on the big blank part of the page. 

“Um, no. It was not with family,” Susan said, shaking her head. “I mean not  _ biological  _ family. They… they kind of...  _ feel  _ like family.”

“And what was the purpose of moving in with them?” 

“Well, one of them is older and retired and she offered for me to move in as a way to help provide childcare,” Susan explained. “I’m single and I’m a doctor, which means I have to work overnight on occasion. And she offered to care for Suzie overnight as necessary and then she said that they had space in their house if I felt more comfortable boarding with them.”

“Mm-hmm. So, you moved in with them for childcare.” Elena glanced up from her notes. “And have the adults in the house been background checked by DCFS at any time?”

“I… don’t know?” Susan answered honestly. “I know that Mildred, the retired one, was a school teacher for many years. And Kerry, her daughter, is a doctor.”

Elena nodded as she looked back down at the paper. Susan’s brow furrowed as Elena drew more symbols on a line parallel to the others: Two circles over top of each other, connected by a vertical line.

“Is there anyone else living in the house?”

“Just Annie. She’s Kerry’s daughter and she’s five.”

Elena nodded again and drew another circle below the other two, which she connected to the circle above it by another vertical line. Then, she set her pen down and looked up.

“I ask because if six more months elapses and you  _ do _ file for permanent custody,” Elena continued, “should you still be living with them, we will need to perform background checks on them as part of the home visit.”

“Oh, okay. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

“Good. Because not wanting to consent to it would be a little bit suspicious,” Elena noted. “Just so you know.”

Susan nodded. The idea of someone coming into her home and essentially grading her on how she interacted with Suzie didn’t sound as nerve wracking as it once had. In fact, it now sounded welcome, if only because of what it meant in the timeline of adoption.

“I’m sorry that I had to be the bearer of bad news. But I’m glad, at least, that we were able to have this discussion now,” Elena said in a consoling voice. “Is there anything else or any other questions you have before we wrap up?”

Susan was about to shake her head (so she could return home with her tail between her legs) when she remembered the card.

“Yes. There is,” she replied as she leaned down to fish it out of her purse. She placed it on Elena’s desk. “I received this card at Christmas from my sister that had a couple thousand dollars in it. But it had no return address or phone number or anything.”

Elena’s brow rose at “a couple thousand dollars.”

“What I want to know,” Susan continued, “is does this count as ‘meaningful contact?’”

Elena stared at the card for a moment and then glanced up at Susan, one of her eyes twitching slightly. 

“Is this the first time that she reached out since leaving?”

“Yes.”

“And has she sent any more cards since this one?”

“No,” Susan replied, shaking her head. “I haven’t gotten anything else. And I haven’t spent it or done anything with it either because…. Well, knowing my sister, it might not have been procured through legal means.”

Elena’s brow rose even further. 

“If you believed that, why did you not turn it into the police?” 

“I tried, but they laughed at me,” Susan said with a sigh. “Said I was being ‘ungrateful about a really great Christmas gift.’”

Elena nodded slowly, deep in thought. And then, she shook her head. 

“I would say no. I don’t think it counts as meaningful contact,” she stated after a moment. “Though I assume it’s meant to provide for the baby’s care, the fact that she didn’t provide any contact information or way to reach her indicates that she isn’t very interested in being contacted. Which indicates to me that she is not reaching out with the intent of coming back.”

Susan nodded and breathed her first sigh of relief in months. 

Kerry rolled her neck back and forth a few times as she climbed the couple stairs up to the front porch. 

A blizzard rolling in had led to a little peace and quiet early in the day before people started their morning commutes. Four MVAs, a few homeless people with frostbite, and a very irate Cupid with his tongue stuck to his arrow had all shown up within a few hours, meaning all Kerry wanted to do now was hug Annie, take a long, hot bath, and go to bed. 

But when she unlocked the front door and saw the morose scene in the living room, all thoughts flew out the door. 

Susan and Mildred were sitting on the couch. Susan had her head leaning on Mildred’s shoulder as the older woman rubbed a gentle hand up and down Susan’s arm. Annie knelt on the floor at Susan’s feet. She was the first to look up at Kerry’s arrival and it was clear by the look on her face that she was very concerned but didn’t really know why. 

“What happened? Is everything okay?” Kerry said quickly, looking between Susan and Mildred for an answer. “Is… Oh, no. Did Chloe come back?”

Mildred shook her head. 

“Susan just learned that she was given incorrect information on how long her sister had to be gone before she was allowed to take custody of Suzie,” Mildred explained without interrupting her comforting of Susan. “It’s not six months before she can file the paperwork, but a year.”

“And that means that if Chloe comes back in the next six months,” Susan said, her voice very close to breaking, “that means the clock resets. And they’re going to try and reunify her and Suzie.

“And it could take… It could take two years. Assuming Chloe never gets her act together. Because they  _ said _ that they’ll try for two years, but there’s no guarantee that she’ll ever come back to me.”

Kerry kicked off of her shoes and crossed the room to take a seat on the couch on the other side of Susan. Annie didn’t hesitate before she climbed up onto her lap.

“How many months are in a year?” she whispered to Kerry.

“Twelve,” Kerry whispered back. 

Annie paused, thinking.

“Well, doesn’t six plus six  _ equal _ twelve?” she asked slowly. “Doesn’t… If she’s already done six, doesn’t that mean six months is the same?”

Kerry sighed. 

“Yes, it is,” she said quietly. “But it’s… it’s different.”

Annie took the tone of Kerry’s voice as an indication that this was a conversation of the grownups.

“It’s just… It’s just so unfair,” Susan said, her anguish in her voice. “Yes, I know they said that it wouldn’t be instant…. But it sounded like it wouldn’t even matter that she left in the first place. That if she got her act together, they would act like nothing happened.”

Mildred let out a sigh and patted Susan on the leg. Kerry looked up at her. 

“Did you tell her about Loretta?”

“No, I did not tell her about Loretta, dear,” Mildred said, rolling her eyes. “I wanted to make her feel  _ better _ . Not  _ worse.” _

“Who’s Loretta?” Susan asked, looking between both of them.

Mildred gave Kerry a look and then sighed. 

“Loretta was my cousin. And Loretta liked to have…” Instead of saying the word, Mildred just pumped her eyebrows. “A lot. As in, she had seven kids by the time she was twenty-four.”

_ “Seven?” _ Susan asked in disbelief.

“Mm-hmm. And this was the thirties, very early forties. There was no birth control, so when she became pregnant with number eight, her only options were to have the baby  _ or  _ to… potentially hurt herself.”

There was a moment of silence as the meaning of the euphemism became clear. 

“And by that time, my husband and I had already lost two adoptions when the parents decided they wanted to keep the baby. So, when Loretta said that she didn’t want to keep it, we approached her and said that, if she carried the baby, we would adopt it. And from the get-go, she was fine with this.

“And she assured us of this, over and over again. Every time we saw her. Every time that we talked to her on the phone.  _ Every _ single time we spoke about it, she assured us that once the baby was born, it was ours. And she maintained this even up until she arrived at the hospital to give birth.”

Mildred shook her head. 

“The baby wasn’t out for more than thirty seconds when she took it all back,” she said quietly. “And we left empty-handed and I was so, so angry. Because…. Because I had felt that everything she had said before should account for something. Everything that happened up until the baby was born should account for  _ something. _ But it didn’t. She was the mother, it was her child, and there was nothing that we could do.”

Mildred exhaled slowly, as if it would release the sadness she still felt almost fifty years later. 

“So, what… what  _ did _ you do?” Susan asked cautiously.

Mildred heaved a sigh.

“We gave up,” she said simply, but with a lot of that sadness still in her voice. “We gave up on believing and resigned ourselves to the fact that we were never going to have children. And we gave up for  _ twenty-five years.” _

If Mildred hadn’t added the last part of the sentence, Susan would have glanced at Kerry, as clearly, even if they  _ had _ given up, something had changed. 

“But, then, in the summer of 1960,” Mildred said as she noticed the look on Susan’s face, “I had a dream. I dreamt that an angel came to me and told me that the next spring, there was going to be a baby born that would be in need of our help and in need of a home with us and that God meant that this baby be ours. And you know what I did?”

Susan shook her head. 

“I cursed the angel out. And God too, for that matter,” Mildred stated sincerely. “I was so angry, asking why would You taunt us like this? Why would You  _ tempt _ us like this? After all we’ve been through, where were You? Where was Your will then? Why would Your will be for us to suffer so?

_ “But, _ when I woke up the next morning and I told my husband, Henry just looked at me and said, ‘Who are we to deny God’s will?’” Mildred let out a small chuckle. “Now,  _ I _ wanted to deny God’s will. I didn’t really believe at that time that God had willed any of this. And if He had, what was the point of Him, if all we’d known was disappointment and heartache.

“But, nevertheless, we put our name on the list again and were matched almost immediately. So, we waited with the expectation that that baby would be with us the following April.”

Mildred paused and took a very slow deep breath. 

“And I will be honest with you, Susan, those nine months were the worst of them all. Because of the _hope._ Because I kept getting excited and the voice in my head would tell me _don’t._ _Don’t_ get your hopes up. _Don’t_ get excited. History is going to repeat itself yet again, and you’re just going to end up so much more hurt if you let yourself hope. It’s not going to work and you’re just setting yourself up for failure. And yet… I continued to hope anyway. And the good that came of that pain was a million times greater than the hurt of hoping”

Mildred glanced at Kerry with a very soft and yet still very proud smile on her face. But even despite the inherent hope of Mildred’s story and the proof that the hope was worthwhile sitting on the couch with them, Susan still let out a sigh. 

Mildred turned herself on the couch so that she was looking at Susanhead on. Gently, she lifted Susan’s chin to look her in the eye.

“My dear, these next six months are going to be worse than any you’ve endured yet,” Mildred said seriously and without breaking eye contact. “And not just because you were thrown into these circumstances by chance and unexpected circumstances rarely ever play out positively in the end, but because of the  _ hope. _

“Because you’re going to feel it every time you look at her. Every time you pick her up in the morning. Every time you put her to bed. You’re going to feel that hope, and that little voice in your head is going to tell you to stop hoping. To not let yourself get swept in it because Chloe could come back at any time. 

“But Annie is right. You’ve already done six months. You can do six more, but only if the prize at the end is worth the pain of the hoping.”

“She is,” Susan said in a small voice. “Of course, she is.”

Mildred patted Susan’s cheek gently and then pulled her hand away. She clapped her hands on her knees as if to say, “Well, that’s that.”

“And of course,” Kerry chimed in, “you can stay here as long as you need. We’ll help as much as we can…. Because we can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is comparatively shorter than the last few, and yet still is over 3,500 words long. Oops. 
> 
> Though I've said that there's stuff that's going to work out (in general) the same way the other AU did, I'm still putting a lot of planning into this AU to make the similarities not work out exactly the same as well as have things play out very differently in this AU than the other. And one of the things that I put a lot of thought into was Chloe's return. I knew that it would feature DCFS, but I didn't know exactly how things would/could play out and still turn out the way I wanted them to. And, for some reason, just writing past it the way I did with "uc" didn't feel right. 
> 
> So, I did what all good writers would do and I consulted a professional. Specifically, I consulted with a a former child welfare social worker (who I may or may not be directly descended from) and asked a bunch of questions about the reunification process, timeline, etc. She gave me a lot of very helpful information that proved very _unhelpful_ for the way I wanted to approach events in this fic. I was about to resign myself to just letting it play out the same way when she told me that the law would not require six months of time to claim abandonment like was said in the show, but rather a year. I verified this applied to Illinois and not just out state, and it turned out to be true. Hence, variation without getting lazy! (And also adhering much closer to how things would actually play out.)
> 
> I realized upon writing this chapter that a lot of the action of this fic so far has taken place through long conversations. My apologies to anyone who's thinking "Okay, okay. I get it. This is a character-based fic about mothers and motherhood, but can we please intersperse thes convos with some more blood and guts, please?" I promise that I will do my best. And though there may be some more conversations in the next chapter, I think that you will feel they're worth it given the actions that prompt them...
> 
> Hope you're having a good day! Until next time.


	12. Revelations Pt. 1

Mark raised an eyebrow as Susan pulled a garland of hearts out of the box of Valentine’s Day decorations. 

“Really? You’re going to hang that stuff up? In the middle of all this?” he asked, motioning to the slew of mothers-to-be that had been moved from L&D down to the ER thanks to a pipe bursting upstairs. “You must really be dedicated to spreading love.”

“Oh, trust me. I do not plan on celebrating Valentine’s Day this year. I am merely checking to make sure that this is _for_ Valentine’s Day and that time hasn’t progressed so fast that we somehow made it back to Christmas again without my noticing.”

Mark chuckled.

“Yeah, I’m not celebrating either.” Mark’s eyebrows rose again. “Thought I was, but it turned out I was wrong.”

Susan looked at him sympathetically and then dropped the garland back in the box. 

“Sorry,” she said before closing the box back up. “How’s that going?”

Mark shrugged and then glanced up at her from his chart. 

“It’s going. Whether I like it or not.”

“I’m sorry, Mark. It’s fucked up.”

Mark nodded in agreement. He still looked rather forlorn though, so Susan offered a pat on the shoulder as well.

“I can just burn those,” she muttered, nodding at the box. “So no one’s allowed to celebrate this year. And if they try, they just get ash.”

Leave it to Susan to cheer him up, Mark thought as he chuckled and shook his head again. 

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ve been single on Valentine’s Day before. I’ll live.”

Susan smiled and then let out a sigh. 

“Yeah. I realized the other day that I haven’t seriously thought about romance since Chloe left. And the only reason I realized that is because Kerry’s mom asked me if I was seeing anyone and, if not, did I want her to be on the lookout for any potential suitors.”

“She really say ‘suitors?’”

“Yeah, she did. But, she’s eighty-one, so she’s allowed to,” Susan said with a shrug. “The thing is that doesn’t really go out that much and I’m not really sold on the idea of bringing home someone she met at the grocery store.”

Mark gave a nod of acknowledgement as Susan looked off in the middle distance, seemingly deep in thought.

“I guess she does pick Annie up from school pretty often, though. Maybe she could find me a nice school teacher,” she thought aloud. Then, she smirked and dropped her voice. “That’s what Kerry’s ex-husband has. Mildred didn’t find it for him, but still.”

“Her ex-husband’s already dating someone?” Mark asked. 

“Yeah, but they’ve been divorced for a couple years now,” Susan replied, waving away the curiosity she could hear in his tone. “His name is Adam.”

“The ex-husband?”

“The schoolteacher.” At the look of surprise on Mark’s face, Susan nodded. “Yeah. I’ve heard a lot about him from Kerry’s daughter. I think it’s the reason why when her mom offered to be on the lookout, she asked what I preferred.”

“The world’s changing,” Mark commented. 

“Well, yeah. But I also appreciate when people don’t assume anything.”

Mark glanced up at her again, his brow furrowing slightly. 

“Why?”

“Because it makes an ass out of you and me,” Susan replied with a grin.

But the joke wasn’t enough to wipe the look of confused concern from Mark’s face.

“I don’t understand,” he said slowly, narrowing his eyes. 

Susan just rolled hers. 

“Oh my God, Mark. I’m not explaining that to you. Go ask the middle schoolers down the street.”

“No, I mean…” He frowned in question. “What do you mean you appreciate when people don’t assume anything?”

“I like when they can’t tell.” Susan shrugged. “If you can’t tell then no one assumes they don’t have a chance.”

“You mean… men _and_ women have a chance with you?” Mark asked, dropping his voice even further.

“Yeah. Anyone does.” Susan’s brow furrowed as she sucked in air. “That makes me sound really easy. I’m _not_ easy. I’m just bisexual.”

Mark blinked at her for a moment and then frowned. 

“Is this a… a recent development?”

“No. It’s a thirteen-year-old development,” Susan replied simply.

“You’ve known since you were thirteen?”

“No, I’ve known since I was _fifteen,”_ Susan corrected. “I’m twenty-eight now, which means it’s been thirteen years.”

Mark took a second to process this.

“Huh. I didn’t know.”

“You’re not the only one,” Susan said, rolling her eyes again. “Most people assume I’m straight. I don’t really dress that butch that often, and even if I did, everyone just assumes straight is the default setting. I mean even _we_ do. Because no one wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and says, ‘Oh my God. I think I’m a heterosexual.’”

They shared a laugh at the same time that Kerry approached the desk, having just helped deliver a healthy baby girl from one of the women who’d been transferred from upstairs. At the sound of the word “heterosexual,” she frowned. 

“What are we talking about?” she asked in her I’m-pretending-to-be-casual-but-I’m-not voice. 

“Oh, just our Valentine’s Day plans or lack thereof,” Susan said, straightening up from where she leaned on the desk. “I’ve decided Suzie is my Valentine this year.”

“Ah. Well, she’s a very cute Valentine.”

Susan smiled and, in a gesture Mark was sure she was going to lose her residency over, playfully poked Kerry on the shoulder. 

“What about you?” she asked, her brow rising. “Do you have a Valentine this year?”

Though she had not reacted to the poke, Kerry _did_ stiffen at the question. Any amount of tenseness that had eased from her shoulders when she approached the desk immediately returned en force. 

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she said quickly. “And even if it was, I don’t discuss matters like that at work.”

And, with that, she picked up her next chart and turned away. Mark and Susan watched her go for a moment before Susan slowly turned back around. 

“I think that’s a ‘no,’” Susan remarked. “Apparently, she’s gone on a few dates lately, but none of them have gone well.”

“She told you that?”

“No. Her mom did,” Susan said with a chuckle. “Because her mom does not keep secrets the way she does.”

Mark shook his head and finished signing off a note on the chart in front of him. 

“It’s a wonder you guys’ relationship has gotten _better_ since you started living there and that she hasn’t killed you yet.”

“Oh, she’s wanted to,” Susan informed him sincerely. “But we’ve just moved _past_ that happening. Most of them. There’s still moments.”

Admittedly, even though they still existed, the moments of wanting to kill each other were now few and far between. 

Ever since she and Kerry had finally made peace back at the end of December, they’d been getting along better and better. They’d started to find things to talk about unrelated to childcare or even to work. They would sit and chat with Mildred or play with Annie and Suzie together when their schedules allowed. All five of them had even gone out to dinner once.

But as glad as Susan was that they were starting to become friends (and that their work relationship had eased up a bit as well), she had recently felt kind of guilty. Mildred had confided in her that Kerry had gone on a few dates since Susan had moved in, which she considered an unusual change, given that Kerry never seemed to have interest in them before.

According to Mildred, Kerry had expressed an unusually high level of promise in the dates only to come home disappointed and report they’d all gone terribly. Susan’s guilt lay in the fact that perhaps if she hadn’t told Kerry that Annie viewed her as lonely, she might not have pushed herself so hard to go out on dates she otherwise wouldn’t be interested in. 

Of course, this had not been brought up to Susan _directly,_ and she knew better than to ask about it. But, even so, the way Kerry stiffened when asked about a potential date for Valentine’s Day made that latent guilt rise to the surface. 

It quickly sank back down, however, when the Ambulance Bay doors burst open and the paramedics rushed in. On the gurney they rushed in the direction of the trauma room lay an unconscious middle-aged Black man in a bloody red suit (meaning it was red _before_ the blood).

“What have we got?” Susan asked as she started following them down the hall.

“One of those singing Valentine’s guys accidentally got the address wrong. Ended up at a gang hangout wearing the wrong color. Three GSWs to the chest,” Pickford explained. “We got two lines wide open and already gave him a liter of blood in the field, but he’s losing it pretty fast.”

“Vitals?” Kerry asked as she too joined the group.

“BP 82/50. Pulse 40, weak and thready. Dropping fast.”

Carol ran ahead of the gurney to help clear the pregnant patient currently in the trauma room out before the gurney arrived. But even with Wendy and Chuny joining her to help move the other patient, there was still a traffic jam in the hallway.

“You guys are running the delivery room too?” Olbes asked with a small chuckle as the nurses quickly wheeled the woman out. “Don’t you have another part of the hospital for that?”

“Currently out of order,” Susan informed her with a frustrated smile. “Because something always is.”

“I just lost the pulse,” Kerry said, squeezing the man’s wrist to make sure. “He’s not going to make it if we get stuck here. We need to start compressions. _Now.”_

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Susan replied before gripping the side of the gurney. “Hold on.”

She put a knee up onto the gurney, careful not to touch the patient, before reaching out a hand in Kerry’s direction to help hoist her up. Kerry took it and helped pull her up, though she was thoroughly confused as to why Susan would reach for her and not for Doris, who was directly across from her. 

Once situated, Susan yanked the man’s shirt open to better examine where the bullet wounds were. They were not in the chest after all, but lower in his abdomen. Still bad, of course, but at least not likely to be repeatedly pushed into him as she laid her hands over his sternum and started compressions. 

She’d only been at it for a minute at most, Olbes using an Ambu bag to administer the rescue breaths when Susan paused, when the gurney began to move forward into Trauma One.

“Alright, that’s enough. Susan, get down. Get ready to charge to sixty,” Kerry directed. 

“He’s not hooked up to the monitor yet,” Wendy said, frowning and she looked between the Chief Resident and the patient.

“I know that, Wendy,” Kerry hissed. “I said charge it. We’ll shock him once he’s on the monitor.”

Wendy did as she was told as did Susan, who, once again, held out a hand towards Kerry for help down. But this time Kerry couldn’t take it, as she was readying the paddles. Instead, Olbes took her hand to steady her as she climbed down.

“Still no pulse,” Kerry stated once Chuny turned the monitor on. “Is it ready?”

“Yes,” Wendy replied, nodding. “Charged to sixty.”

_“Clear.”_

Everyone in the vicinity jumped backwards and held their hands up and away from the patient as Kerry put the paddles down on the man’s chest. 

“Nothing,” Chuny read before glancing at Kerry. “You want a hundred?”

“Yes. Charge to one hundred.” Once the paddles were ready, Kerry called out once more, _“Clear.”_

Everyone jumped back once more, just as they would do when Kerry called out the order each time the voltage on the defibrillator increased. And yet, forty-five minutes later, there was still nothing. 

Finally, Kerry let out a sigh.

“That’s it,” Kerry said as she handed off the paddles. She glanced up at the clock. “Time of death: 15:42.”

The others began cleaning up and returning everything to its rightful place. Susan helped clean up too before pulling her gloves off and disposing of them in the Hazardous Waste bin. 

It was at this point that she realized all the blood on her pants. Though that one little voice in her head that was permanently in the seventh grade told her that it was a terrible period accident and that everyone in the cafeteria was going to see it and laugh, the little voice that was an (adult) ER doctor bemoaned the fact that she’d just bought these pants two weeks ago and they might already have to be retired. 

She made her way to the scrub closet and then to the bathroom to change. When she came out, she spotted Kerry talking to Chuny in the hallway outside of the trauma rooms. And by the time Susan arrived, Chuny had walked away, leaving just Kerry alone in the hallway.

“Hey. Got everything taken care of?” she asked as she drew even with Kerry. 

“Yes,” Kerry said as she signed off on the chart in her hand with a flourish and looked up at Susan.. “Now, we just have to figure out who he was.”

Susan always grimaced at the thought of identifying a John Doe, and how many inevitably went un-identified. But just as the thought of how uncomfortable a phone call to a singing Valentine company would be, she saw the look of discontent on Kerry’s face. 

“Kerry, you did a really good job,” Susan assured her quietly. “He was too far gone by the time he got here for us to really do anything. But you still tried.”

As much as Kerry found it strange for one of her residents to reassure _her_ , she couldn’t deny that it felt kind of nice. So, she just gave Susan a small smile of gratitude. 

But when Susan returned the smile, she set her hand on Kerry’s shoulder. Kerry automatically stiffened, but when this did not prove to be enough to make Susan _remove_ her hand from Kerry’s shoulder, she quickly grew frustrated.

 _“Come with me,”_ she hissed before turning sharply on her heel. 

Susan confusedly followed her down the hall and into a temporarily emptied exam room. She’d barely taken two steps into the room before Kerry slammed the door shut and turned on her.

_“Why do you keep touching me?”_

Susan blinked. Then, her brow furrowed. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“You keep touching me,” Kerry repeated. “Just now on my shoulder. Earlier at the desk. You even reached for my hand twice in the trauma even though you could have easily grabbed someone else’s. So, what’s going on?”

Susan opened her mouth to reply, but then shut it again before frowning at herself. 

“I did not realize I was doing that...” she said slowly, both in realization and almost as if she was questioning the words as they came out. 

“Really? Because it certainly feels like you’re doing it on purpose.”

“I swear,” Susan said, holding up her right hand. “I promise I did not realize I was doing it.”

Kerry observed her closely for a moment, her eyes narrowed. 

“Okay. But don’t let it happen again. It’s unprofessional,” she said finally. “And beyond that, I don’t like to be touched.”

She gave Susan one last scathing look before turning on her heel again, this time for the door. But, given that she had turned away, she didn’t catch the way Susan rolled her eyes. 

“Okay, fine. I’m sorry for touching you. I won’t do it again,” Susan said with a sigh. “But you don’t have to lie about it.”

Kerry stopped where she stood. Slowly, she turned back to look at Susan, a dangerous look on her face. 

“Excuse me?”

“I get it if you don’t _want_ people to touch you, especially at work,” Susan replied, raising her eyebrows, “but that’s not the same thing as not _liking_ to be touched. And since you _do_ like to be touched, saying that’s why you don’t like it is lying.”

“And what makes you think I’m lying?” Kerry said in a very slow voice. 

“Because you touch people all the time,” Susan said with a shrug. “You’re always hugging on Annie and Mildred-”

“My daughter and my mother-”

“And you hug Michael-”

“Who is my ex-husband,” Kerry stated bitingly. “And I’ll admit to having gotten touchy-feely with him before. It’s how we got Annie.”

“And me. You let me give you a hug. Remember? Back in December?” Susan raised her eyebrows even more as she stepped forward towards Kerry. “I held your hand while you were talking about Annie and then I gave you a hug.”

“And I distinctly remember telling you that that was the only time that was going to happen,” Kerry snapped. 

“So, I think that should fall into the ‘I don’t want to be touched’ category instead of the ‘I don’t like to be touched’ one, because as I recall it, you enjoyed that hug.”

 _“What does it matter?”_ Kerry seethed. “‘I don’t want to be touched,’ ‘I don’t like to be touched’ - Who cares? The point is _don’t touch me.”_

By now, she and Susan were almost nose-to-nose (or as close as they could be with a three-inch height difference between them). So close, in fact, that they could feel each other’s breath as they both stood there seething as their blood boiled for the first time in several months. 

But before either of them could say anything, Kerry watched Susan’s eyes grow wide like she was suddenly understanding something that hadn’t occurred to her before. And before Kerry’s brow could furrow in question, the taller woman took a slow, deep breath and then stepped back away from her. 

“What?” Kerry asked, frowning as Susan’s arms dropped from where they had been crossed across her chest down to her sides. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Susan shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Why did you step back?”

The frustration in Kerry’s voice had changed to confusion. She looked Susan up and down as if that would somehow help explain the sudden change in behavior. 

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Susan, why did you step back?” Kerry asked again, the frustration starting to return in her tone. “What’s wrong?”

“I was just…” Susan closed her eyes and raised her hands defensively. “I was going to touch you after you just told me not to, so I stopped myself.”

“By, what, holding yourself back?” Kerry gave Susan a look almost like bewildered disgust. “Were you going to hit me?”

“No. Of course not,” Susan replied, rolling her eyes. “Forget it. I’m sorry I touched you. It won’t happen again.”

“Tell me what you were going to do,” Kerry demanded. 

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Kerry insisted through gritted teeth. “Tell me what you were going to do.”

“I can’t tell you,” Susan pushed back. “So, can you please just accept my apology, so we can get back to work?”

“I’m not accepting anything until you tell me why you stepped away from me.”

Susan rolled her eyes again and threw her hands up.

“Alright, fine. You want to know what I was going to do?” 

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Susan asked sincerely. She raised her eyebrows. “Are you _positive?”_

 _“Yes._ Just tell me.”

But that's the thing about kissing someone passionately, though. It was something best expressed through _showing_ and not just _telling._

Of course, Kerry didn’t have time to consider whether she'd have preferred being shown or being told, as the moment Susan’s lips met hers, every thought vanished from her head immediately and not a single one showed any indication it would be returning any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I usually use the :) to indicate danger is coming, but, in this case, I really mean the :)
> 
> A lot of today was spent going back and forth between "This is happening too fast" and "This is not happening fast enough." I kept feeling like it may be too rushed, that there haven't been enough chapters of them getting along yet. But, then, I was thinking about their arguments during Season 2 and how they came on for seemingly little reason and were always wrought with sexual tension _ER_ failed in resolving in a satisfying way. 
> 
> It was the arguments that got me thinking of how I wanted things to get figured out though. Part of it was flipping the script from the other AU where it was _Kerry_ who figured it out first, but it was also from toying with the idea of that tension. In other words, the "Oh, shit" moment was not from quiet reflection but rather from loud frustration.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy Part 1. Part 2 will be coming soon. 
> 
> Also, I realize that this is the first long fic that I haven't just labeled as Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, etc. Since I'm giving them chapters, expect things like Parts 1 and 2 or repetition and stuff. I thought that was something I did just for my original novel, but, apparently, I just like doing that. 
> 
> I hope you're having fun! I am. And by having fun, I mean the :) will be back to it's normal use soon. Not _soon soon_ , but sooner than you think. And trust me, when The Thing that is coming finally comes, I think it's going to be even more devestating than anything else I've ever put readers through. It was to write, at least.
> 
> Until next time. 
> 
> :)


	13. Revelations Pt. 2

Minutes, hours, days… Kerry had no idea how long the two of them had been standing there when Susan finally pulled away from her. 

When she did so, Kerry stood there for a moment before opening her eyes. 

Susan was not close as Kerry swore she could feel, but had stepped even further away than before. Her eyes were wide again, but not in dawning realization, but in utter horror at what she’d just done.

“I am so sorry, Kerry. I’m so sorry,” she said in barely more than a whisper. “I should not have done that. I’m… I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Kerry said quickly in an effort to calm Susan’s growing shock. “It’s… It’s nothing. It’s not a big deal. You don’t… You don’t have to be sorry.”

She had meant this as an assurance of what (or rather  _ who) _ had just come out, but Susan just shook her head seriously. 

“Yes, I do. Because that… That crossed a line. In a big way,” Susan stated firmly. “I…I should not have let my anger get the best of me like that and I’m… I’m very sorry.”

Whether consciously or unconsciously, Susan took another step back. And when Kerry stepped forward, she stepped back again. 

“Susan, please. It’s  _ okay,” _ Kerry said as reassuringly as she could. “Susan, let’s just-”

“Forget it? Yes. Yeah, let’s forget that ever happened,” Susan finished with a curt nod. “I am… I am so sorry. And I promise it will not happen again. It or… or anything like it.”

Kerry opened her mouth to try and reassure her again, but Susan was out the door before she had a chance to.

She stared after her for a long moment. 

The thoughts that had were just getting back to speed after their brief sojourn during the kiss started picking up pace. And, for reasons she could not fathom in the moment, the first thing she thought of was… Michael?

Wait, no, she thought. She  _ did _ know why she thought of Michael. She thought of him because of that look. 

The look in Susan’s eyes. That searching look in the moment of silence between them, the moment when the closeness that had existed between them just a second ago was suddenly yanked miles apart with just a few words. Or, in this case, a few shared breaths. 

That look of hopeful fear and fearful hope, of torturous bliss and blissful torture in the moments when the truth was out but the consequences had not yet arrived. The look where, in that moment, every shred of knowledge, every word recalled, every reaction seen was calculated into a prediction that ultimately meant nothing until the other person opened their mouth.

She needed to chase Susan down. She needed to reassure her that this was fine. That it really meant nothing and that it didn’t change anything and that she wasn’t going to out to anyone or,  _ God forbid, _ do anything worse.

Because it really  _ did  _ mean nothing.

...

Right?

Yes. Yes, it meant nothing. It was just a kiss. It was probably born out of passion in the heat of the moment and nothing else. 

Except if it  _ had _ been born out of the heat of the moment, then surely Susan would have just done it the first time, right? She would have just let the passion take over and she’d have just kissed Kerry and been done with it?

But she didn’t. She stopped herself. She  _ realized _ something…. and then she stepped back. 

It was the stepping back that had bothered Kerry the most.

In the moment, it had felt like such an overt display of… _ something. _ Even though Susan had been doing exactly what she had asked, even though Susan was actively keeping herself from going against what Kerry wanted, seeing her actually do it just… Well, it just pissed her off. 

And rightfully so, she thought later in the day as the kiss continued to plague her thoughts. It wasn’t that Susan stepping away from her made her mad, it was that she told Susan to tell her what she was going to do and she refused. 

_ That _ was what had made her mad, really. That Susan refused to tell her and that perhaps she was keeping something important from her and by not telling her, she was actively defying Kerry’s order.

Yes, that was it. That  _ had _ to be it.

After all, Susan was just a resident and she was the  _ Chief Resident, _ meaning that Susan was supposed to do what she asked. And in all the times they’d argued before, she’d never acted like that. (... Right?)

But Kerry couldn’t even think the words ‘Susan is just a resident,’ before her brain disagreed with her. 

Susan  _ wasn’t _ just a resident. Susan was her friend. A friend who had done something rash and was probably kicking herself somewhere, scared that Kerry was going to get her fired or worse.

Maybe it  _ wasn’t  _ rash, a little voice in her head suggested. Maybe she’d been planning this for a while and she only looked like that because she got caught.

Kerry tried to shake the thought out of her head.

Susan couldn’t have been planning it. Not when she had looked that surprised right before she stepped away. 

Though, it  _ did _ seem to have been a look of realization. Maybe she hadn’t been planning the kiss, but something had made sense to her in the moment. Maybe she’d realized she’d  _ wanted _ to kiss Kerry and that’s what was so surprising to her. 

“Oh, hello, dear. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Kerry blinked. 

Mildred walked into the kitchen from the hallway. She, Kerry, was standing in the living room. 

She glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 6:30 pm. When had she left work? When had she gotten home? And  _ how _ had she gotten home? (Because she certainly didn’t remember driving.)

“Kerry, my love,” Mildred said, frowning as she stepped forward into Kerry’s line of sight. “Are you okay?”

“What? Oh. Oh, yeah. I’m fine,” Kerry replied quickly. She looked around. “Where’s Annie?”

“At Michael’s. Because it’s Tuesday.” At the look on Kerry’s face, Mildred narrowed her eyes. “You’re not okay. What happened?”

“Nothing. I mean…” Kerry took a breath and then shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

“Well, clearly, whatever it is, it’s  _ not  _ nothing.” Mildred pointed at the couch. “Sit.”

Kerry did as she was told. Mildred took a seat next to her, continuing to look her daughter over with concerned appraisal.

“Did something happen at work?” Mildred asked slowly. “Was it a patient?”

Kerry just sat there for a moment before she began to rub a hand back and forth across her forehead.

“No, it’s… It’s about Susan.”

“What about her?” Before Kerry could answer, Mildred’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, God. Did the sister show up at the hospital?”

“No, no,” Kerry said, shaking her head. “I just… Is she home yet?”

“Not yet. Otherwise I’m sure she’d have come upstairs to get Suzie,” Mildred said, nodding towards the (occupied) Pack-n-Play. “Why?”

Kerry grimaced and then let out a sigh.

“We got into it at work today. And, you know, we argued a fair bit when I started there, but we haven’t done that in a while. Things have been… Well, they’ve been better between us lately. But today, she just kept…  _ touching _ me. Little touches. My arm, my shoulder, grabbing for my hand - things like that.

“And I told her off about it because… because she shouldn’t be doing that. But I said something about not liking to be touched and she said that I was lying and I  _ do _ like to be touched-”

“And she was right,” Mildred interjected, “but go on.”

Kerry paused to give her mother a look of exasperation.

_ “Anyway,”  _ she continued, “we just kept escalating and finally I just told her not to touch me. And then… And then she backed away from me. And right before she stepped away, she looked… I don’t know. Like she’d just… Like she’d just figured something out. And when I asked why, she said that she was going to touch me after I said not to and was stopping herself from doing it.”

“So, she was doing exactly what you asked her to do?” Mildred said slowly. 

“Well, I mean...” Kerry rolled her eyes. “Yes. She was. But she wouldn’t tell me why she stepped back. What she was going to do if she hadn’t. And I kept pushing her to tell me and she.. She…”

“She what?”

Kerry closed her eyes.

“She kissed me.”

“She kissed you?” Mildread repeated, her brow rising (though, unless Kerry was mistaken, she appeared less surprised and more impressed).

“Yes, she… she kissed me. And when she was done, she just looked at me and she was so…. God, she looked so  _ scared. _ Horrified even. And she started apologizing and saying that she shouldn’t have done it… And she kept looking at me like she was afraid I was going to punish her.”

Kerry pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“I just… I had no idea  _ that _ was what the reason was. I thought it was, that it  _ had _ to be something else. Anything else. And I kept pushing her on it and basically pushed her to out herself and… Well, no wonder she looked so scared.”

Mildred considered this for a moment and then frowned, which led her daughter to do the same. 

“What?” Kerry asked, her brow furrowing. 

“Well, dear, I…” Mildred paused, gathering her thoughts. “Considering the fact that your ex-husband is openly gay and that you haven’t cut him off from you or Annie’s lives and the fact that she came out to me last week in casual conversation, I don’t think that outing herself was what she was afraid of.”

Kerry stared at Mildred for a long moment. 

“What do you mean she came out to you last week?”

“I asked her about her Valentine’s Day plans and when she said she had none, I offered to keep an eye out for her. And when I asked her who she preferred I keep an eye out for, she said she was ‘open to anyone,’” Mildred replied with a shrug. “And while I’ll admit I’m not exactly hip to all the names and the lingo, it certainly didn’t sound like she was very straight to me.”

Kerry took another long moment to think about this. 

“Alright. Maybe that… maybe that wasn’t what she was afraid of,” Kerry said slowly. But then she shook her head again. “But then what was she afraid of? Me?”

Mildred just raised her eyebrows.

“Why would she be afraid of me?” Kerry asked, the alarm in her voice at the very thought evident in her voice. “Do you think she was afraid I was going to get her in trouble?”

“Well, you have told me on several occasions that you are ‘technically her boss,’” Mildred pointed out. Then, she let out a sigh. “Not to mention that you are also her friend and roommate. Perhaps her fear was not so much of the professional consequences than it was of the personal ones.”

“But there’s not going to be either,” Kerry said sincerely. “We were the only people in the room. No one else knows except us and you. We could just…”

“Forget it ever happened?”

Even though Kerry knew it was Mildred that had finished the thought, the only thing she heard was Susan. 

Kerry heaved a sigh. 

“Yes. We can forget it ever happened.”

Mildred nodded slowly for a moment. But then, she fixed Kerry with that same appraising look. 

“But do you  _ want  _ to forget it?” 

Kerry, who was staring at her mother’s knee, deep in thought, looked up at her. 

“What?”

“You’ve talked at length about how you think Susan feels, but not once have you mentioned how  _ you _ feel.”

“I… I feel guilty,” Kerry stated simply. “That I made her-”

“No, dear,” Mildred said, shaking her head and taking Kerry’s hand in hers. “I mean how did you  _ feel. _ About the kiss. Did you like it?”

Kerry’s mouth worked wordlessly for a moment, before her expression changed to one of confusion.

“Did I like it? No. I didn’t… I didn’t like it.”

“Really?” Mildred asked, seemingly skeptical. “What were you thinking when she was kissing you?”

Kerry took a second to consider the question. 

“Nothing. My mind was…. I was so caught off guard by it that it just went blank.”

“And exactly how long was this kiss?”

Kerry considered this too and then gave a tiny shake of her head. 

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“You mean you don’t know?” Mildred asked, not even trying to hide the skepticism in her voice this time.

“No,” Kerry said, shaking her head again. “It could have been a few seconds… or it could have been a few minutes. I really can’t say.”

Mildred paused for a moment before giving one single knowing nod. 

“Because it felt like time stopped.”

Kerry looked slightly taken aback, but after a moment, she gave a small shrug. 

“Yeah. I guess that’s one way to put it.” But at the sight of the small (but soft) smirk growing on Mildred’s face, she scoffed. “You think that means I liked it?”

“No, dear,” Mildred said, patting her hands gently. “I think that means you like  _ her.” _

“I…. Well, I  _ do _ like her. Because she’s my friend. Now that we get along, I… I consider her my friend. I like her and I respect her and I think we’re comfortable together and we have a lot in common.”

“Which are all things anyone would want in a friend,” Mildred said with a conciliatory nod. But then she looked at Kerry over the rim of her glasses, her smirk growing. “But time wouldn’t have stopped if she were just your friend.”

“You…” Kerry tried to swallow the anxiety that was rising from her chest. “You don’t know that.”

“Actually, I do. Or, rather,  _ you _ do,” Mildred mused. “Because you’re the only one of us who can say if time ever stopped when you kissed Michael. And he’s been your friend longer than anyone else.”

The answer was clear in Kerry’s eyes before she even opened her mouth. 

“It didn’t.”

Mildred patted Kerry’s hand and offered a reassuring smile, but what she saw next in Kerry’s eyes made her turn to sit properly on the couch so she could pull her (not-so-little-but-always-would-be- _ her _ -) little girl onto her lap. And, like Annie automatically tucked her head under Kerry’s chin when Kerry hugged her, Kerry automatically leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder the moment Mildred wrapped her arms around her. 

“But I loved Michael,” Kerry said quietly. “I  _ did _ . I loved Michael.”

“And I would say you still do, dear,” Mildred reassured her as she rubbed Kerry’s back. “And I would say Michael loved you and still does. I mean… even when he came out to you, you never questioned that he cared deeply about you, did you?”

The sigh that Kerry let out served as an answer enough. 

They just sat there for a long time. Mildred ignored the way her creaky old bones started to grow angry with the fact that she was holding Kerry on her lap for so long. But just as she considered shifting her weight slightly, the anger of Kerry’s not-as-old-but-sometimes-still-creaky bones won out and she carefully moved off of Mildred’s lap onto the seat of the couch beside her. Once situated, though, she immediately put her head back on Mildred’s shoulder. 

“I think you’re taking this better than I am,” Kerry muttered, wiping away tears she couldn’t exactly explain. 

Mildred just chuckled and kissed Kerry on the top of her head. 

“It’s what your father and I always promised you, dear,” she murmured. “The only thing we ever wished for you was that you were happy and loved. And I think she could make you very happy. If only because I’ve already seen her do so.”

Kerry wanted to negate the statement (as Kerry was wont to do), but she really couldn’t. 

Ever since she and Susan had started getting along, things had been different between them. And not just in a budding friendship sort of way, either. 

It was easy to talk to Susan. It was  _ fun _ to talk to Susan. And she  _ wanted _ to talk to Susan. 

She’d wanted to throughout each of the so-called terrible (but in all honesty just very mediocre) dates she’d gone on over the past few months. During each of the ill-fated dinners, the only thing she could think of was how much she’d rather have been at home with Annie and Mildred and Susan. Sitting and talking and playing and… and being happy. 

Kerry tilted her head a bit to look up at her mom. 

“Even if she’s a she?” she said in a voice barely more than a whisper. 

“Even if she’s a she. And especially if she’s  _ that _ she.” Mildred chuckled again and pulled Kerry tighter to her. “Though, of course, I could just be saying this as a ploy to get more grandchildren.”

Kerry let out a chuckle of her own. 

“I think if this was a ploy to get more grandchildren, then you would have pointed me in a different direction.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear. By my count, this means I now have two.” Mildred glanced sideways. “Isn’t that right, Suzie?” 

The baby looked up from where she’d been entertaining herself by cruising along the netted walls of the Pack-n-Play and let out a happy shriek at the sound of her name, which led both women to smile. But Kerry’s smile faded almost as quickly as it began.

She let out a sigh and shook her head.

“I think it’s too early to say things like that,” she thought aloud. “Who’s to say that she’ll… or that I’ll….”

“Well, I think that’s a conversation you’ll have to have with her,” Mildred remarked as she rose from the couch to go pick up Suzie. When she turned back and caught sight of the figure at the door, her eyebrows rose. “And it looks like you just might.”

Kerry glanced at the door just as it opened and Susan stepped inside. She too must have been deep in thought as she did not notice anyone else in the room until Suzie let out another happy shriek.

None of the women said anything. Mildred just silently handed the baby over to Susan. 

“Perhaps you’d like me to put her down, so that you two can talk,” Mildred suggested, glancing between Susan and Kerry. 

Susan stiffened at the sudden realization that she and Kerry were not the only ones who knew about the events of earlier in the day.

“Oh. Well, I…” Susan glanced quickly between Kerry and Mildred. “I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.”

“I think there is,” Mildred said simply before giving a pointed look not at Susan (which relieved Susan greatly) but at her daughter. 

Susan looked at Suzie for a second and then nodded. 

“Okay. Um, we’ll talk after I put Suzie down,” Susan said (more to Suzie than to anyone else). 

“That’s fine,” Mildred said, raising her hands and turning for the kitchen. But just as she reached the hallway, she turned and looked at them both seriously. “But you  _ will _ talk.”

She gave one more pointed look at Kerry before turning back down the hallway and eventually disappearing into her room. 

Susan didn’t hesitate long enough for even a backwards glance. She just raced down the hallway and downstairs before anyone could say anything. 

Kerry considered waiting in the living room, but the fact that she was still in her work clothes pushed her to her room and eventually to a shower. 

Once she’d changed into her pajamas and had found the kitchen and living room empty, she decided to return to her room but to keep her door open for whenever Susan came back upstairs. Her decision to sit down on her bed before pacing was meant to be temporary (so she could put on her slippers), but the combination of anxiety and the memory foam mattress topper atop the pillow-top held her in place until she heard footsteps approaching and then pausing outside the bedroom door.

Kerry looked up and found Susan looking as pensive as she had felt since they’d kissed. Immediately, she stood up, which made Susan stiffen again.

“Should we go…”

Susan nodded towards the living room. 

“No. We can talk in here,” Kerry said, before quickly adding, “If you’re okay with that.”

Susan shrugged and stepped  _ just _ far enough into Kerry’s bedroom that she was no longer in the hallway.

“So…” Susan began slowly, wincing even though she knew the answer. “You told your mom?”

“Yes,” Kerry said, nodding. “Because I was worried about you. Because you looked so scared before you left and I didn’t have a chance to talk to you about it at work.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Susan stated in a resolute tone. “It was a dumb mistake and I shouldn’t have done it. And I’m sorry that I did and I’m sorry if I...”

Susan’s words trailed off as Kerry held out a hand to her. She looked at it and then glanced up, raising an eyebrow. 

Kerry nodded her on and, the moment Susan took it, Kerry pulled her close to her, first in a hug and then into a kiss just as deep and as passionate as the one Susan had given her earlier. 

But this time when Susan pulled away, the look in her eyes was not fear or trepidation but rather cautious and  _ very _ confused hope.

“What…  _ exactly _ did you talk about with your mother?” she asked quietly, narrowing her eyes. 

Kerry just smiled slightly. 

“That time stopped. And how… how time had never stopped before.”

But Susan only frowned at the unusually flowery language with which Kerry described their kiss. This though, only made Kerry’s small smile grow before she pulled Susan into another kiss.

_ “WAIT!” _

Both Kerry and Susan jumped apart and immediately looked towards the still-open bedroom door where Annie stood in the hallway looking like it was every gift-receiving holiday (religious or otherwise) all rolled into one.

“Where did you…. But why are-” Kerry spluttered, staring wide-eyed at her daughter. “What are you doing here?”

“Daddy had to bring me back because they called him into work,” Annie informed her. “But that’s not important. What  _ is _ important is how long has Miss Susan been an Adam?”

Susan and Kerry exchanged confused glances for a moment before they realized that the use of the word ‘Adam’ in this instance meant ‘my parent’s new same-sex partner that I really like.’

“It’s… I don’t…” Kerry looked to Susan for help, but Susan was as bug-eyed as she was. So, Kerry looked back to Annie. “Just… Just in the last five minutes.”

_ “Oh,” _ Annie said, looking a little bit put-out. But then, her eyes and grin grew their widest yet. “Wait! Does this mean that Suzie’s my sister now?”

“No. Well, I don’t…” Kerry buried her face in her hands and then shook her head. “I don’t know what it means yet, alright? We need to talk. So… So, you go start getting ready for bed and I’ll be in to tuck you in in a little while.”

Kerry stepped forward towards the hallway to kiss a pouting Annie on the head before pointing the pouter off to her room. Annie turned with a sneer and did what she was told, but not without muttering very clearly, “I hope it means Suzie is my sister.”

Once the door was shut, Kerry leaned against it for a moment before she felt Susan’s hand on her arm. But instead of stiffening, she let herself be pulled into an embrace. 

“I think she’s on board,” Susan murmured as she wrapped around Kerry from behind, relishing the way they seemed to fit so perfectly together now just as they had back in December. “Are you?”

There was no doubt that the embrace felt as good, if not  _ better, _ than the kisses. But there was also no doubt that her heart had not stopped pounding since hearing Annie’s shout. And it was this that led her to pull away from Susan. 

“I…. All I know is that I…” Kerry bit her lip. “I like you. And I like kissing you. But… But I’m not ready to tell anyone or-”

“I’m not asking you that,” Susan said, looking her in the eye. “I’m asking you if I can touch you. Here. At home. When it’s just us and your mom and the girls. I’m asking if I can kiss you and hug you and, well, whenever you’re ready, maybe do a little bit more.”

Susan put her hands on Kerry’s upper arms and then slowly moved her hands down until they were holding Kerry’s. She squeezed them.

“Are you on board with that?” she asked quietly. “Yes or no?”

Kerry inhaled deeply. She could feel both of their hearts beating. Hers in her chest and Susan’s in her hands. 

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah. We're here. And only ten more pages than it took in "unexpected circumstances". In other words... oops. 
> 
> But we're here! And things are good! And Annie has a sister now, whether Kerry agrees she does or not!
> 
> Other than a short one-shot I posted on tumblr, I didn't really address much about how Kerry's parents would have reacted in the "uc" AUniverse. In that one, I follow the timeline of Kerry's parents' deaths as mentioned in Season 11 (aka where they died before she graduated college). However, given all that I'd written in the [prequel fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554961), I didn't have any doubt (in my head) that they would be okay with it because we know from canon that they were involved in the [Christian] church and I believe that they'd have ascribed to the "God is love. Period." aspect of Christianity. Also, given Kerry's birth mother's reaction, I felt she deserved at least _one_ parent that would be okay with it. So, here we are!
> 
> Those of you who noticed Mildred's paying attention early on... Well done. Also, I meant to say this before, but it really excited me when people pointed out that Mildred pushing Kerry to let Susan move in felt like things that people get mad at Kerry for. To that I say, _exactly!!!_ (Because that's who taught her how to do that!!!!)
> 
> You guys have been kind of quiet lately, so I hope that just means you're overwhelmed with love like these two are and aren't disappointed or feeling like it's not doing the characters justice. If you've been around a while, you know that that's my only goal, and I know this AU features _a lot_ more from OCs than the other has. if that's the hang-up, I promise we'll start rectifying that soon.
> 
> I sincerely hope you're enjoying this. Have a good rest of your day/night! Until next time. 


	14. The Waiting Game

Given the events surrounding their first kiss, Susan figured that, though she now had permission to move forward, she would take it slow. After all, Kerry’s reaction had been _so_ much different than she had anticipated that there was part of her that thought it might have been reaction _ary_ and it was only a matter of time before she blinked herself awake and demanded to know what was going on.

But whether it was because thirty-four years of repression were rapidly coming undone or simply because it had been years since someone that was not her mother had hugged her like that, it was only a few days before Kerry seemed to have grown accustomed to the new dynamic between them. 

At home, at least. At work, they kept their distance from each other, save for the unassuming touches from working side-by-side in a trauma or moving around a crowded desk (which Susan was no longer verbally reprimanded for).

The only real threat to their relationship going beyond the confines of the house was Annie. Luckily for Susan and Kerry though, she’d already been given the ‘Yes, even though they kiss me and sometimes sleep in the same bed with me, we have to pretend that they’re just my friend’ spiel from Michael, and therefore understood the importance of being careful. 

The spiel, however, did _not_ apply to Suzie, who Annie now referred to as her little sister no matter how many times Kerry told her not to. Susan didn’t seem to mind this, though, partly because Annie’s excitement about having a new baby sister was just too cute to quash and partly because she secretly thought it might bring good luck. Perhaps if Annie called Suzie her sister enough, God, the Universe, or whatever was out there would listen and make it so. 

(It should be noted, however, that what was likely the biggest reason she did not try to stop Annie from saying it was because, in the Weaver household, strength of will was inversely proportional to height. Which was saying something considering Kerry was only _marginally_ taller than her mother.)

There was, of course, a voice in the back of Susan’s head warning her that she was getting too comfortable. She often questioned if there even was a God/Universe/whatever out there controlling things, but the moment she let herself think about it for too long, she became convinced that they _did_ exist and that everything was about to fall apart and she was going to lose Suzie forever. 

The aggravating truth of it was that all she could do was wait. February had to turn into March and March had to turn into April and so on. She could worry and complain and tick off the days all she liked, but time wasn’t going to move any faster. The best she could do was hug Suzie as much as possible and pray that that would never have to end. 

Mildred’s warning that these six months would be worse than those she’d waited already, though true so far, really grew in its truth as July rolled around. It meant the end was sight. If she could get from July 4th to Annie’s birthday, then she could get from Annie’s birthday to Adoption Day. Twenty-two days was the same as twenty-two days, just as six months was the same as six months. 

(This, however, hinged on her ability to get through July 4th.)

Kerry said a silent prayer that the bleacher row in which Annie and Mildred (and by extension Suzie) sat was empty, meaning she didn’t have to try and squeeze past anyone. 

“What’s the score?” she asked as she took a seat next to Annie. 

“Seventeen to three,” Annie informed her as Kerry pulled her into a sitting side-hug. “But we’re not winning.”

Kerry chuckled as Annie grimaced without once tearing her eyes away from the field. 

“Annie has never been to a baseball game before. Which I think of as a failure on your and Michael’s part,” Mildred said with a pointed glance at her daughter. “Which leaves _me_ to have to fill her in on everything that’s going on.”

“You’ll need to fill me in too,” Kerryn said, rolling her eyes. “If you really know what you’re talking about, that is.”

“If I really know what I’m talking about?” Mildred let out an offended scoff. “You’re talking to a former member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, thank you very much.”

Kerry gave her mother a look of stunned disbelief.

_“What?”_

“The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League,” Mildred repeated.

“Like in _A League of Their Own?”_ Kerry asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Exactly,” Mildred confirmed with a nod. “I played right field for the Minneapolis Millerettes in the summer of 1944. We weren’t very good though, so we only lasted that one season. But I had a batting average of .304.”

When Kerry’s brow furrowed, Mildred added, “Which is very good.”

Kerry continued to stare at her mother for a second and then shook her head. 

“No. No. You’re lying. You never played baseball,” she said with a smirk. “Otherwise, I’d have known before today.”

“Perhaps you never asked,” Mildred remarked with a shrug. “Or perhaps your father didn’t like me talking about it because he never got to see me play. And also because I _may_ have become a bit of a nuisance to go to ball games with afterwards.”

Though Kerry was still skeptical of the fact that Mildred played professional baseball when she was young, she couldn’t deny that becoming a nuisance (which was likely a very nice way of putting it) when watching the sport later on _did_ sound very much like her mother.

“Grandma told me that Susan is playing second base and that Mr. Doug is playing shortstop,” Annie said without looking up. “But I don’t understand because Mr. Doug is tall.”

“Well, you don’t need to be short to play shortstop,” Mildred explained. “You’ve just got to be quick on your feet.”

“Okay,” Annie said slowly. “But why is the guy in the middle called a pitcher and not a thrower? Because all he’s doing is throwing the ball.”

“No, he’s _pitching_ the ball. It’s a special type of throw.” But as the next pitch walked the batter, Mildred shrugged slightly. “Well, it’s supposed to be.”

“I don’t like how baseball names things,” Annie said, frowning (though she still didn’t look away).

Luckily, the walk wasn’t much of a problem, as Susan caught the third out and the teams switched out.

“This is probably it,” Mildred said, glancing down at her watch. “The fireworks are supposed to go off in ten minutes, so they’ll probably call it after this.”

“We could still win, though, right?” Annie asked, breaking her concentration to look up at Mildred. “If they hit the ball enough?”

“It’s possible…” Mildred said with a shrug of acknowledgement. “But they’d have to hit the ball really hard and run really fast.”

Kerry couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard Mildred mutter, “And they haven’t been doing that so far,” under her breath.

Mildred doubt seemed to help matters as Mark started them off with a solid single to the outfield, followed by a double from Carol. Jerry brought them both in with a single and then made it to third on another single from Susan.

“So, when you get one base on a hit, it’s called a single,” Mildred informed Annie (and Kerry). “And when you get two, it’s a double.”

“And three would be a triple,” Annie concluded just as Doug got a hold of a particularly nice slider and launched it over the fence. As he rounded third for home, she cocked her head in question. “What’s that? A…. four-tuple?”

“After triple comes a quadruple,” Mildred stated. “Except in baseball when it’s called a home run. Because you start at home plate and you run all the way back to home plate.”

Mildred glanced at her granddaughter out of the corner of her eye, smirking.

“Do you have a problem with that?”

Annie thought about it for a second as she watched one of the orderlies knock in two more runners, bringing the score up to 10-17. Then, she shook her head. 

“No. That one’s okay.”

Within minutes, they were back to Mark, the rest of the lineup having batted through. All not currently on base had been hit home, leaving the ER team only down by four. But before Mildred could remark that they might just be able to win after all, Mark struck out. 

Those in the dugout booed and hissed playfully as he walked back, dragging his bat in shame. Doug was about to rib him about his batting stance when he noticed the redhead in the stands and nudged Susan. 

“What did you do to get Kerry Weaver to come to a baseball game?” he asked, nodding towards the bleachers. 

Susan followed his line of sight to Kerry and the others. Chuckling, she waved at Kerry only to receive three waves in return. (Four once Mildred had gotten Suzie to wave too.)

“Looks like you’ve got your own little fanclub,” Doug said, raising his eyebrows, before turning his attention to Carol at the plate. 

Susan chuckled again and shook her head, but her smile stuck around. 

Thanks to a fumbled throw from the other team, Carol got on first, hitting one run in and moving the other runner into scoring position. She ended up getting thrown out at third thanks to a double from Jerry. 

Susan followed him, hitting a nice line drive just past the shortstop’s glove. As she raced towards first, she could hear the crowd cheering and imagined she could hear some of them cheering louder than the others. (Perhaps she was.)

Though the line drive had been a solid hit, it’s proximity to second base kept Jerry from advancing to third. At least until the pitcher threw Doug a ball that bounced off the edge of the catcher’s mitt, giving Jerry the opportunity to steal third. 

“If he hits it like he did last time, they might just win it after all,” Mildred said, clearly impressed. She glanced down at her watch. “And not a second too late either. Fireworks should be starting any time now.”

Doug made contact on the next pitch, ripping it to the outfield with a satisfying _crack_ from the bat. Though not over the fence this time, the hit went deep into the outfield, hitting Jerry home with ease. 

Susan could sense Doug coming in hot behind her and picked up the pace as she rounded second. Mark stood just behind third and pointed her to keep going. 

But he realized a second too late that this was a mistake as the center fielder got it from the fence to the infield in one deft throw. 

“Oh no,” Mildred said quietly as the others cheered. “This isn’t good.”

“What do you mean?” Kerry said, glancing sideways. “What’s not good?”

“She’s going too fast.”

“But isn’t that good?” Annie asked, her arms half-raised in a cheer. “Isn’t she supposed to run fast?”

“Yes, but, she went around the base _too_ fast and now she’s stuck. The ball is too close. If she turns around, they’ll throw her out at third. If she keeps going, they’ll tag her out at home.” 

“So, she’s gonna get out no matter what?” Annie asked in a despairing voice. 

“The only way she wouldn’t is if she slid. Which is something she should not do unless she knows how to. Otherwise she’s going to hurt herself.”

All three watched wide-eyed as Susan and the ball rapidly approached home. 

Susan _did_ know how to slide, thanks to an over-enthusiastic pee wee softball coach when she was young. But just at the moment that she should have prepared herself to beat the tag, she caught sight of her fanclub in the bleachers directly ahead of her. 

The reasoning behind their looks of alarm didn’t occur to her until she heard the ball whiz past her left ear. Immediately, she started into the slide, tucking her right foot underneath her left leg and hoping for the best.

She felt the collision just as the umpire made a wide sweeping motion with his arms. His shout of _“SAFE!”_ went unheard though as, at that same moment, the fireworks started off in the distance. 

The massive _boom_ took those in the stands by surprise, but none more so than Mildred, who nearly let go of Suzie. She clutched at her chest for a moment before turning the now-crying baby around on her shoulder to calm her and looking at Kerry. 

“Go take care of her,” she said, pointing towards where Susan sit on the field below them.

“Take care of what?” Kerry asked quickly. 

“Just go make sure she’s okay,” Mildred hissed. “Go. _Now.”_

Kerry didn’t have to be asked twice. 

She made her way out of the bleachers and down to the field as fast as she could. Susan was still sitting on the ground at home plate when she stepped onto the dirt, Mark squatting nearby and looking concerned. 

“Can you stand up?” he asked as Kerry arrived at his side. 

“Yeah, yeah, just hold on, Mark,” Susan said, wincing as she waved him away. “Just give me a second, okay?” 

Mark raised his hands and stood up. It was clear to him and Kerry both that the ‘second’ Susan claimed she needed was closer to five minutes.

Finally, she started to get up, careful not to put any weight on her left foot until she was standing. Once her right leg was firmly supporting her, she gingerly stepped onto her left foot. 

It didn’t take an ER doctor to tell what the loud _crunch_ meant or the fact that she cursed so loudly upon doing so that Kerry’s first thought was that Mildred should cover Annie’s ears. 

“You need to go to the hospital,” Mark ordered, stepping to Susan’s side. “Right now.”

“It’s… It’s fine,” Susan said slowly. “It’s probably just a bad sprain. It… It just needs some ice.”

“Mark’s right,” Kerry said, nodding. “You need to go to the ER.”

Susan just shook her head. 

“No, no. It’s fine. I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Susan, you’re turning green,” Kerry stated sincerely. “You’re _going_ to the hospital.”

Susan knew better than to argue this one, because even gently setting her foot down caused a wave of nausea to sweep over her. The only reason she didn’t lose her lunch right then and there was because Mark noticed this and immediately scooped her up and started for the dugout. 

“I’ll bring my car around,” Kerry said as she followed close at his elbow. “If you can carry her to the curb, I’ll take her in.”

“It’s okay, Kerry,” Mark replied, shaking his head. “I can take her.”

“Let Kerry take me, Mark.”

Susan had closed her eyes against the noise (that was only making the nausea worse) and therefore missed the look of disappointment in Mark’s eyes before he nodded. 

Kerry backed in through the door to the exam room, her free hand full of supplies and a large envelope of X-rays. 

Susan lay on the bed, her eyes closed but a blissful smile on her face. At the sound of the door, she turned her head to look at Kerry and smiled serenely.

“How do you feel?” Kerry asked as she set everything down on a nearby rolling table.

Susan raised the hand without the IV line in a peace sign.

“I feel _great._ This morphine stuff is nice. It’s like… my head feels clear, but my body is…. It’s just good.” She let out a yawn. “I’m starting to understand why Chloe likes this stuff so much.”

“That’s concerning,” Kerry said simply. 

She picked up the envelope and held it up to Susan.

“I’ve already taken a look, but I figured you wanted to see them.”

“Sure,” Susan said with a delayed shrug as Kerry slid the films into the lightbox. “Throw ‘em on up there.”

“Okay, if you keep talking like that, I’m turning the morphine off.”

Susan considered this for a moment, before shrugging.

“That’s fair.”

Kerry chuckled and turned on the lightbox. Susan scanned them closely and then cringed. She looked at Kerry and narrowed her eyes.

“Are you sure those are mine?”

“Very.” Kerry pointed to the midfoot bones on one of the X-rays. “I see a fracture of the medial cuneiform, the intermediate cuneiform and… three metatarsals. Though I could be wrong.”

“Meaning there could be less?”

“Meaning there could be more.” Kerry nudged a stool up to the side of the bed and sat down. “Your toes must have bent backwards.”

“Yeah,” Susan said, wincing as she sat up. “And I think the other ones are from when the catcher stepped on me.”

“You mean the cleat marks weren’t there already?”

Susan rolled her eyes, but couldn’t deny the little bruises that bore a remarkable resemblance to size 13 men’s Nike baseball cleats. (Thank goodness they weren’t metal.)

“I need to numb it,” Kerry said as she picked up a pair of gloves. “So that I can set it.”

“Set it like ‘Set it and forget it’ or set it like ‘Wrap it in fiberglass for six weeks.’”

“I think you know which one.”

Susan let out an exasperated sigh. 

Kerry carefully palpated around Susan’s ankle, causing Susan to hiss in pain. Once the proper place was located, she gently sterilized it with iodine before drawing up the lidocaine into the syringe and injecting it in between the bones.

“Alright. While that sets in, I need to go get the other supplies,” Kerry said, peeling off her gloves. “So, I guess I should ask you now if you have a preference of color.”

Susan thought through the different casting tape colors for a moment. 

“How about the bright pink and then a yellow stripe on top,” she thought aloud before looking at Kerry. 

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“The only person in this department who gives striped casts is Doug,” Kerry said as she continued to get up. “And that’s because he works with kids. You are an _adult.”_

“So what? I like pink and yellow.” She pointed a finger at Kerry and raised her eyebrows. “You know what? I _am_ an adult and I’m an adult who _works_ here and therefore has insider information about what this emergency department can and cannot do. And that is something we can do.”

“No.”

Susan let out a huff. 

“I want a different doctor,” she said, crossing her arms and sitting back against the wall. “A _nice_ one.”

Kerry couldn’t help but smirk at the pout on Susan’s face. She shrugged. 

“You could have let Mark bring you.”

Susan gave a shrug of acknowledgement. Then, she gave in with a sigh.

 _“Fine._ If you won’t do two colors, then make it bright green.”

“A woman after Annie’s own heart,” Kerry remarked, raising an eyebrow. 

“What can I say? She has good taste… Though, admittedly, I asked her what her favorite color was and she said she loved all of them equally, so I could choose any color and win her heart.”

She returned a few minutes later with the casting supplies and Wendy, who was carrying a container of water. She did not comment on who was in the room though thanks to a quick dismissal from Kerry.

Kerry took her seat on the stool again and put on a fresh pair of gloves. This time when she poked at Susan’s foot, there was no wincing. 

“How’s it feel?”

“Good and numb.”

Kerry nodded and took Susan’s foot in both of her hands. She looked up at the X-rays again before locating the slight displacement of the midfoot bones. 

“I need to reset these before I can apply the cast.” She glanced up at Susan. “Are you ready?”

At Susan’s nod, she counted down and then skillfully shifted the bones back into place with one movement and a very unnatural-sounding _crack._

“Oh my God,” Susan said, squeezing her eyes shut. 

“You said it was numb. You said you were ready-”

“No, no,” Susan said, cutting Kerry off. “It didn’t hurt. That sound is just so much _worse_ when it’s your own foot.”

The reassurance allowed Kerry to relax. 

She then began the casting process by slipping a light stockinette from Susan’s foot up to just below her knee. Susan watched her slowly wrap a layer of cotton padding over top of it, carefully moving the wrap between both hands. 

But when she tore open the package of casting tape, it wasn’t green but rather pink. 

Susan lit up.

“You changed your mind?”

Kerry rolled her eyes and dipped the tape into the water before she started wrapping it over the cotton. 

“I figured you’d probably go home and tattle on me to my mom and Annie, and Annie, at least, would never let me live that down.”

Susan smiled, enjoying the (albeit strange) sensation of Kerry smoothing down the tape by running her hands up and down Susan’s leg. 

“You know, it was your guys’ fault that I fell,” she said as Kerry folded down the edges of the stockinette and started the second layer. 

“Our fault?” Kerry asked, her brow furrowing. “What do you mean it was our fault?”

“You guys were sitting behind home plate and distracted me as I was running,” Susan said in mock accusation. Then, she smiled. “It was worth it though.”

“You might feel differently after the morphine wears off.”

“Maybe,” Susan admitted. “You know when I waved at you guys and you waved back? Doug said you all were my own personal fanclub. And I guess that’s an okay word for it.”

Susan smirked as Kerry’s brow rose (though she was still set to task).

“But I think I prefer the word ‘family,’” she said quietly. When pink rose in Kerry’s cheeks that Susan was sure was _not_ a reflection of the fiberglass, she asked, “Are you going to turn off the morphine for that?”

“No,” Kerry replied quietly as she dipped the yellow roll of tape in the water. “I’ll allow it.”

Susan chuckled and just watched with a soft smile as Kerry finished up the taping with the stripe of yellow before shedding her gloves. 

“Okay. While that hardens, I’ll send you to get post-immobilization films. Then, we’ll find you some crutches and I’ll take you home. Though, I will warn you that Annie doesn’t recognize underarm crutches as a legitimate form of crutches.”

Susan leaned back against the bed. 

“Why even bother discharging me at this point? I’m on at six-thirty, anyways,” she said, yawning as she looked at the clock on the wall (11:49 pm). “And this is the emergency department. Just go fuck around for six hours and then discharge me five minutes before my shift starts. That’s how it works here, right?”

Kerry chuckled. 

“Wouldn’t you rather your three days of non-weight bearing before you have to start walking around on that thing be on the couch instead of here?”

“It depends….” Susan dropped her voice. “Will you be on the couch with me?”

Despite the small rush of fear that shot through her at Susan’s flirtation, Kerry smirked nonetheless. 

“No. I’ll be fucking around here for several hours. Just as you said.”

Susan heaved a dramatic sigh. 

“Alright. I’ll just sit there waiting for you to come home, I suppose,” Susan said as Kerry finished cleaning up and started for the door. Just as Kerry opened the door, Susan said in a low voice, “But at least I know it would be worth waiting for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the fact that _I want to play softballlll._ But unfortunately, it's the end times and there's a plague and that means I cannot play softball this summer. So, instead, I will write very detailed fanfiction about the thirty-second baseball scene we got in "Doctor Carter, I Presume."
> 
> I'll be honest, I really wanted to write about this for an something in [A Forest of Trees](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216501), but the timeline of Susan's maternity leave with Suzie in that AUniverse just wouldn't work out. It did fit well here though, as did some unfortunate consquences that arose from it. 
> 
> We've reached Season 3, so things will _really_ starting picking up pace here (mostly because I spent a helluva long time in Season 3 in the other AU). Of course, I might get random inspiration and change that which I've already plan, so who knows! One thing the plague _is_ doing is apparently loosening all my word count inhibitions. You know, those things that say "Hmmm... maybe chapter is actually long enough to be two?" And to that I say, who cares! The world is ending, so I'm gonna write as much as I want! Because it is physically unsafe to do anything else!
> 
> Anyways, I hope you guys are good. Until next time.


	15. The Day of Reckoning

If walking on the cast was not so frustrating, Susan would have been pacing up and down the hallway and basement stairs checking and double-checking that everything was in order. However, her dislike for walking in the cast shoe (and unwillingness to get lectured over not using it by a certain someone she lived with) overruled her anxiety and thus kept her on the couch in the living room, impulsively looking between the clock and the door. 

Other than three days of not being allowed to bear weight on her foot that, as Kerry predicted, resulted in very judgemental looks from Annie due to her use of the “wrong” crutches, the month following the events of July 4th had been fairly quiet. 

Chloe remained AWOL, meaning that permanent custody was looking more and more likely and, despite her best efforts to the contrary, Susan was getting hopeful. And when her caseworker told her it was time to schedule the home visit that would be the final step before she was allowed to adopt Suzie, Susan lost control of the hope she’d carefully been pushing down for the last year completely and let herself get excited. 

That was, until the morning of the home visit, on which Susan awakened with a sense of dread. 

Were there locks on all the cabinets in the kitchen? Was every outlet covered? When was the last time the smoke detector batteries had been changed? 

(Yes, yes, and two weeks ago… when she did it.)

“Okay, you remember what your job is when the social worker comes?” Kerry asked as she gently tightened Annie’s ponytail.

Annie, who was sitting on the floor in front of where Kerry sat on the couch, nodded and then hissed as Kerry accidentally pulled her hair. 

“To be quiet.”

“Unless…?” 

“They ask me questions,” Annie answered. 

“And if they ask you questions, what are you going to tell them?” Kerry asked, raising an eyebrow as Annie leaned back against her knees and looked up at her. 

“The truth,” she replied, frowning as if wondering why Kerry would even ask. 

Kerry just smiled and scooped her up onto her lap, before letting out a deep exhale as she kept forgetting her little girl wasn’t really as little as she looked. 

Across the room, there was the sudden sound of a chair scooting back as Susan shot into a standing position. 

“He’s here,” she said quickly. Then, her eyes widened and she looked around in a panic. “Wait, where’s Suzie?”

“You’re holding her.”

Kerry nodded towards where Susan had the toddler hoisted up on her hip. Susan followed the nod and looked down, where Suzie looked back up at her, still sleepy from her recent nap. 

Susan took a deep breath and then nodded just as the caseworker knocked on the door. She adjusted Suzie on her hip and then stepped forward to open it. 

Waiting on the porch was a kind-looking Black woman in a patterned dress and belt. She smiled at Susan before offering her hand to shake. 

“I’m Sheila Martin, one of the home visitors from DCFS. I’m here to meet with…” Sheila glanced down at the clipboard in her hand. “...Susan Lewis?”

“Yes, yes. I’m Susan Lewis.” Susan took Sheila’s offered hand and shook it. She then stepped back and held up an ushering hand. “Please come in.”

“Thank you,” Sheila replied with a small nod.

Susan smiled nervously as Sheila stepped inside and glanced around. 

Susan paused for a moment to inhale deeply before closing the door and turning around herself. Then, she stepped around Sheila and indicated to the group in the living room.

“Ms. Martin, this is Kerry Weaver, my, uh, roommate. And that is Mildred Weaver, her mother, who is… also my roommate,” Susan introduced as she motioned to each woman respectively, who waved in turn. “And that is Annie Levin. She’s Kerry’s daughter and she’s-”

“Also your roommate,” Sheila finished. At the look on Susan’s face, Sheila chuckled. “I got it from context. And, besides, they’re listed on the genogram.”

“On the what?” Susan asked, frowning.

“The genogram. It’s a diagram that we clinicians use to keep track of the family members of our clients. It’s sort of like a family tree, but shows more than just the family of origin, as those at play are not always biological,” Sheila explained. “It also allows us to keep track of family patterns and relationships. You know - who talks to who, who _doesn’t_ talk to who…. Things like that.”

Sheila flipped a few pages on the clipboard and then held it up to Susan. 

On the page was the hand drawn figure of circles and squares that Susan vaguely remembered from her meeting with the social work supervisor back in February. 

In the bottom center was a circle labeled _Suzie Lewis._ It was connected to a vertical line that split into two and then angled up again, one connecting to a square labeled _Unknown_ and the other connecting to a circle labeled _Chloe Lewis._

Chloe was connected to lines leading to Henry and Cookie Lewis. Another line led off of them to a _Susan Lewis,_ and parallel to Susan’s circle were three circles connected by vertical lines and labeled with the three people she lived with. These three circles, Susan’s circle, and Suzie’s circle were all circled in blue, signifying Susan’s move. 

“Now,” Sheila said, lowering the clipboard and flipping back to the first page, “is it safe to assume that this is Suzie?”

Sheila pointed to the blonde toddler on Susan’s hip. Susan nodded. 

“Yep. This is her.” Susan looked down at Suzie and raised her eyebrows. “Suzie, can you say hi?”

Suzie looked from Susan to Sheila and then buried her face in Susan’s shoulder. Susan patted her back. 

“Sorry,” Susan said with an apologetic smile at Sheila. “She’s not usually this shy, but she just woke up.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Sheila replied, waving her away. “That actually works out as I usually go through my checklist first. We can give Suzie a little time to wake up while I complete the rest of the home study, and then we’ll finish with watching you two interact. Does that sound good?”

“Yeah. I’ll, uh.. I’ll give you the tour. Let me just set her down.”

Sheila nodded and then started for the kitchen to begin checking the cabinets for locks. Susan, instead, turned towards the living room. 

When she reached the couch where Kerry and Mildred sat, Kerry automatically reached up to take Suzie. Susan just shook her head and instead sat Suzie down on the floor in front of Annie, before making pointed eye contact with Annie and stating in a low voice, “You know what to do.”

Annie gave one sincere nod, which placated Susan and confused Kerry. 

“What does that mean?” Kerry asked Annie as Susan turned for the kitchen. 

“That’s between me and Suzie,” Annie stated simply as she started for the toy box. 

Kerry opened her mouth to ask for further clarification on this, but Mildred just waved her away and muttered, “It’s not worth it, dear,” out of the side of her mouth.

Sheila had already moved from the kitchen to the door to Annie’s bedroom by the time Susan caught up with her.

“This is the cleanest floor of any children’s bedroom I’ve ever seen,” Sheila remarked in an impressed voice as Susan drew even with her. She glanced sideways at Susan. “You must have done a lot of work to prepare for this.”

“Oh, no. It’s pretty much always this clean,” Susan said, glancing around. “Annie does a good job of cleaning up whenever she’s done playing.”

 _“Annie_ does? You mean the six-year-old?” 

“Well, Kerry vacuums, but, yes, Annie picks everything up.”

“How on _earth_ did her mother teach her to do that, because I’ve got an eight and ten-year-old of my own who haven’t quite gotten the memo themselves yet.”

“Well, Kerry and her, um, ex-husband taught Annie when she was very young. Because both she and Kerry use crutches when they walk, so they try to keep the floors clear as much as they can. For safety,” Susan explained. “It’s the, uh, same reason they don’t wear socks on the hardwood.… Well, Kerry doesn’t. Annie does.”

A look of something between curiosity and comprehension crossed Sheila’s face. 

“So, both mother and daughter are disabled,” she concluded. “And does Kerry work?”

“Uh, yes?” Susan confirmed, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why? Is… Is there a problem?

“Problem? Oh, no, no. Just making sure I’m documenting everything I should be,” Sheila said quickly. “Do you know what Kerry does for a living?”

“She works with me at County General,” Susan answered, her tone betraying her lingering confusion. “She’s the Chief- No, wait. She just got promoted. She’s an Attending Physician in the Emergency Department. And _I’m_ the Chief Resident.”

Sheila nodded and jotted a note down on her clipboard. 

“Sorry to ask. Some of the information on the others in the household wasn’t gathered in the initial assessment, so I just want to make sure that it’s noted in the final case report.”

Susan nodded as Sheila started scoping out the outlets for covers and the baseboards for bugs. Susan then took her across the hall to Kerry’s room and then through the bathroom that joined Kerry’s room with Mildred’s. 

“So that’s the upstairs. Suzie and I live downstairs,” Susan said as she led Sheila into the spare room/home office/laundry room that contained the (gated) stairs to the basement.

“You two live in the basement?” Sheila asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yes, but everything is up to code,” Susan replied quickly. “Walls are sealed. There’s windows in the window wells - none of which leak when it rains - and everything has been tested for mold.”

“And the results were?”

“Negative. As recently as two weeks ago.”

Sheila still didn’t seem convinced, but when Susan opened the baby gate and started down the stairs, she followed. 

“What happened to your leg?” Sheila asked curiously as Susan carefully (and slowly) led the way into the basement.

“I broke my foot about a month ago,” Susan said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not over with yet, but I am over it.”

(And the fact that every patient asked her the same thing every day… and that Kerry had grown so adept at pretending not to hear the questions that she didn’t think to warn Susan about their inevitable - and constant - occurrence.)

“This is the living area,” Susan said as she led Sheila past the couch and small counter space to the short hallway beyond them. “And this is Suzie’s room.”

Sheila peeked her head into the room Susan indicated. 

It was small, but contained a crib, dresser, and small play area. There were two windows at the top of the wall, which let in a decent amount of light. 

“And please note the dehumidifier in the corner to keep the moisture levels low,” Susan said, pointing towards the far corner opposite the crib. 

Sheila marked it on her clipboard as she observed the rest of the room and then joined Susan back in the hallway. Once she had returned, Susan opened the door right next to Suzie's.

“What’s all that?” Sheila asked, pointing to the far side of the room away from the bed and dresser.

“Oh, that’s just my furniture. I had a lot of stuff that I didn’t need anymore after I moved in and they had the space here to store it,” Susan explained, waving it away. “It’s cheaper than a storage unit.”

“Oh, so this is not a permanent residence for you?” Sheila asked, frowning.

Susan blinked. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, if you’re keeping all that stuff--” Sheila motioned to the furniture that was (poorly) concealed by a room divider “--then you must intend on moving out at some point.”

Susan looked from the social worker to the stuff in the room and then back. Then, she shook her head. 

“No, I don’t anticipate moving any time soon.”

“Yes, but what does that _mean?”_ Sheila said, emphasizing the last word. “One week? Six months? Ten years?”

Susan considered this for a moment. 

“Definitely more than one week,” she finally answered. “And hopefully longer than six months.”

“What would make your decision?” 

Susan could feel her face growing hot. 

“You know…. Relationships?” she answered in a voice that sounded far less sure than she wanted it to. “And whether they… work out.”

Thankfully, Sheila nodded.

“I see. Like if you were to get married.”

“Yes…” Susan noddly slowly and then faster. “Yes. If I were to get married I would… move out.”

She hoped to all hell that Sheila didn’t notice the hesitation in her voice and, more so, that she didn’t question why it was there.

“Alright. I just need to take a look in your room and the bathroom, so why don’t you start upstairs and I’ll meet you there? With the documentation for the next section, if you’ve got it ready.”

“Yeah. I do,” Susan said, nodding again though her thoughts were now far from the home study. 

So far, in fact, that she was in the living room before she’d even realized she’d started upstairs. 

“Everything alright, dear?” Mildred asked from the couch. 

Susan frowned for a moment and then nodded. 

“Yeah, yeah. She’s finishing up downstairs and asked me to get together all the paperwork for the next step.”

“Wouldn’t that be downstairs?” Kerry asked. “In your room?”

“No, she got it together already,” Mildred answered. Then, to Susan she said, “You put the box on Kerry’s desk.”

Annie looked up from where she and Suzie were stacking blocks and frowned in confusion.

“Momma has a desk?”

“It’s in the laundry room,” Kerry said simply. 

Annie considered this for a moment and then looked up at her, her confusion even deeper. 

“That’s a _desk?”_

“Oh, _hush.”_

“Are you sure you’re alright, Susan?” Mildred asked. She sat forward slightly in her seat. “You look concerned.”

“It’s…. It’s nothing. Just that...” Susan paused. “We need to have a garage sale.”

“What?”

Susan just shook her head and turned back towards the hallway. She vaguely heard Annie ask how they could have a garage sale without having a garage before starting towards the extra room. But before she could reach the door, she felt a hand on her arm. 

She jumped in surprise and turned around to find Kerry behind her, looking concerned.

“Are you alright?” she asked quietly, her eyes scanning Susan’s face carefully.

Susan opened her mouth to reply with a ‘yes,’ but what came out was completely different than she expected. 

“I don’t want to move out.”

“...What?”

“I don’t want to move out,” Susan repeated. 

“No one is asking you to,” Kerry replied slowly. “What…. Why would-”

“She pointed out that my keeping all my furniture implies I plan to move out someday. And I don’t,” Susan stated firmly. “I’m happy here. I’m happy with you. And I don’t want to move out.”

“Okay,” Kerry replied, nodding quickly though she now looked even more concerned than before. 

“So, we need to get rid of my old stuff,” Susan continued, “because I don’t need it anymore.”

“Why don’t we talk about that after this is all over?” Kerry suggested in a reassuring tone. “Let’s get through the, uh, the home visit first.”

And, as if the Universe was intent on reminding them that they were right in the middle of it, there was the sound of someone coming up the stairs. 

Kerry took a brief moment to ensure Susan was okay before she turned back for the living room. Susan got the box of materials just as Sheila arrived at the top of the stairs, prepared to take it from her.

The rest of the home study went just as planned. Sheila reviewed the necessary paperwork, ticking off the boxes on her clipboard before interviewing Kerry, Mildred, and Annie about Susan and Suzie’s relationship while the Suzies played together. 

It wasn’t long after this that Suzie started to become hangry and it was agreed by all lunch was a reasonable stopping point. Mildred invited Sheila to join them, but she politely declined, saying that she had another visit in another part of town to get to. 

So, instead, Susan walked her out to where she had parked on the street.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she said, extending a hand for Sheila to shake. “I hope everything was the way it should be.”

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Sheila reassured her with a kind smile. “You’ve clearly gone to great lengths to ensure that Suzie has a safe and happy home with you. So long as you get through Saturday the 17th without any hiccups, all that’s left is the court date.”

Susan was sure that if she tried to say too much, she’d burst into tears. So, she just nodded and muttered a small, “Thank you.”

Sheila smiled in reply and turned for her car. But, then she paused and turned back. 

“I did want to say just one thing....”

Susan’s heart immediately clenched in fear.

“I know that you’ve been pursuing custody since last August, so it might not have been offered to you at that point,” Sheila said in a much lower voice than she’s used before, “but, as of last year, it _is_ legal for two women to adopt together in the state of Illinois. I know it’s just your name on the custody paperwork right now, but if you and Kerry are planning on adopting together, you _are_ allowed to add her name to it.”

Susan started for a long moment. 

“What?”

Sheila automatically raised her hands defensively. 

“I apologize if I’m off-base,” she said quickly. “I just figured since the bed you identified as yours has clearly not been slept in for several weeks, if not months, and a pillow with a case that matches the sheets downstairs was on Kerry’s bed…”

Sheila had done this long enough to know the wide-eyed look Susan was giving her was not offense, but rather someone knowing when they’d been figured out. 

So, to relieve Susan’s tension (or at least try to), she just chuckled. 

“Relax, hon. I just wanted to give you fair warning. I won’t put it on any paperwork without your express permission,” she assured Susan. Then, she shrugged. “But I figured I had to offer. The wife would get mad at me if I didn’t.”

At the word ‘wife,’ Susan felt herself relax just the tiniest bit. 

She considered bringing up what Sheila said to Kerry (and Mildred and Annie, as they were pretty much a packaged deal), but decided against it. They’d only been dating for six months after all, and determinedly saying that she never wanted to move out was enough of a show of commitment for one day. 

Still, regardless of whether or not Kerry’s name was with hers on the paperwork, it didn’t lessen the excitement Susan felt when she showed up the moment the clock struck midnight on August 18th, nor did it change the fact that when her court date came a few weeks later, all five of them were in the hearing room and then in the photo with the judge that followed. 

As they walked out on their way to a celebratory lunch (on Mildred), Susan kept thinking of something Mildred had said in passing during one of their first times sitting at the kitchen table doing paperwork. Long before this, and long before she and Kerry even got along. 

She had said that family wasn’t defined by blood or genetics. It was who you chose and who chose you. 

At the time, Susan had thought it was just a lesson in adoption, but the longer she thought about, she wondered if it hadn’t been Mildred’s way of telling her she’d been chosen too. That she’d decided Susan was now part of their family (whether her daughter liked it or not). 

As she thought about this, Susan took what felt like the first true breath she’d taken since the night Chloe left. 

Watching Chloe drive away, she’d felt so helpless. It was just her and Suzie and this vast unknown spread out in front of her that felt so endless and engulfing that she had been afraid one wrong step would have swallowed her whole. She’d have been crazy to have chosen that willingly. 

But as the five of them squeezed into a booth at a local diner down the street from the courthouse, talking and celebrating the fifteen-month-old amongst them (who admittedly had little idea as to why everyone was so happy), Susan had the distinct feeling that she wouldn’t have chosen it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Under any other circumstances, I would have a lot to say about a chapter celebrating a joyous occasion but I don't. To be honest, I feel really silly even posting this today, but I finished the chapter and I try to post as soon as I finish them.
> 
> I had more written out, but all I’m gonna say is that I feel change coming and I hope wherever you are that you're doing what you can. Protesting, donating, educating yourself, listening, taking care of each other and yourself - any and all of the above as well as so much more I'm not even thinking of. 
> 
> Until next time.


	16. Ghosts

Kerry signed out the alive-again Frankenstein over to the ICU and started for the desk, considering (not for the first time that day) how little she really liked Halloween. 

Having spent the prime trick-or-treating period of her childhood overseas meant that when the Weavers moved back to the states when she was twelve, she had very little interest in the holiday and little reason to develop any. 

Any interest she had in Halloween now had only developed over the last four or so years when Annie got old enough to get excited about it. But even with Annie’s excitement, Michael was usually the one who walked her around the neighborhood.

(And any excitement Kerry had about imagining Annie in whatever costume she’d picked out was quashed that morning when Annie told her that this year’s costume was a secret.)

Susan stepped out from behind the desk just as Kerry reached it and upon seeing Kerry, her expression grew confused.

“How did you get over here? I was just talking to you in there,” she said, nodding towards the desk. 

“I’ve been in a trauma for the last twenty minutes,” Kerry replied, frowning. “It wasn’t me you were talking to.”

“No, I’m _very_ sure it was you….” Susan narrowed her eyes. “It had to be. She looked _just_ like you. Red hair, lab coat, glasses….”

She backed up a step and looked through the doorway to the desk. When she saw whatever it was she saw, she turned back to Kerry with a look of sudden understanding.

“Nevermind. It _thought_ it was you, but I was wrong. Because she doesn’t have a crutch….” A smirk crept across Susan’s face. “She has _two.”_

“Who on earth are you talking about?” Kerry asked as frustration started to creep into her voice. 

She stepped forward and looked through the doorway the way Susan had. But as soon as she spotted who on earth Susan was talking about, her growing frustration immediately dissipated and was replaced with an amused eye roll. 

Annie was seated on the counter dressed in a lab coat that looked like it belonged to a grown man over top a navy blue turtleneck and gray pants. Mildred had even popped the lenses out of an old pair of reading glasses for her to complete the look.

Carter was leaning on the desk next to her, asking her questions about a ‘chart’ that he was showing her. The glasses Annie was wearing were so big they kept slipping down to the end of her nose, so she kept pushing them back up as she talked to Carter. 

Kerry had almost reached her when Annie finally looked up and, at the sight of her mother, lit up before puffing her chest out proudly. Annie grinned broadly, showing off the three new gaps where she’d recently lost more teeth as Kerry scooped her up into a hug. 

“Do you like my costume?” Annie asked excitedly as Kerry put her back down on the counter. “Do you know who I’m dressed as?”

“Do I know who you’re dressed as?” Kerry repeated rhetorically. “Well, I think you’re dressed as _me.”_

“I’m the Chief President!” she announced happily. 

“Meaning you’re dressed as me.”

Annie looked so proud of herself that Kerry didn’t bother to point out that she was not the Chief President- that she was not the Chief _Resident_ anymore and that the title now belonged to Susan. 

“Wait,” Carter chimed in, pretending to do a double take between Kerry and Annie. “You mean you’re _not_ Dr. Weaver?”

“I’m not Dr. Weaver. I’m Dr. _Levin,”_ Annie corrected firmly. “See?”

She pointed to the name embroidered on the lab coat she was wearing. The _M_ in the name _Dr. M. Levin, MD_ had been taken out and a new _A_ had been sewn in its place.

“Ah. I wondered where you got that,” Kerry remarked as she straightened the collar of Annie’s lab coat. 

“Daddy said he got a new one, so I could have this one,” Annie cheerfully informed her. “But he said he could have given me the new one too. He said he never really uses them.”

“He never uses them? Ever?” When Annie shook her head, Kerry rolled her eyes. “Surgeons.”

“Are you going to be a doctor when you grow up?” Carter asked Annie.

“Another Dr. Levin?” Kerry added. “Like Daddy? And Zayda?”

Annie paused to think. 

“I always forget that Zayda’s a doctor too.” Then, she cocked her head in question. “Was Zayda’s daddy a doctor too?”

“I don’t know. You will need to ask Daddy that. But what I _do_ know is that if you grow up to be Dr. Levin too, you’ll be the first Dr. Levin I know whose name is not Michael.”

Annie beamed at the thought of carrying on the family tradition of the Doctors Levin (even if the next in line wouldn’t be Michael Levin III). 

“Did you see Suzie’s costume?” Annie asked, perking up and looking around. “Grandma was holding her last.”

“I have not seen it yet because I was too distracted by the Chief President.”

“Well, you _need_ to see it,” Annie informed her earnestly. “She looks really cute, but she does _not_ like wearing it. You need to see it before she takes it off.”

Kerry just chuckled as she lifted Annie down off the desk. 

Her crutches had been tucked under the desk to keep them from tripping anybody. Or at least, both _should_ have been.

“Where’s the other one?” Kerry asked as Annie practically crawled under the desk looking for the other one. “Don’t tell me Grandma let you only bring one.”

“No, it just fell.” 

After another moment of looking, Annie managed to pull it out. She held it aloft for a brief moment before letting the cuff slip down her arm and turning for where Mildred stood nearby with Susan, who was holding Suzie, surrounded by a group of onlookers.

Suzie did indeed look both very cute and _very_ angry. She was dressed in a bumblebee costume that Susan had found while out shopping. It mostly consisted of a black and yellow long-sleeved onesie, which did not appear to bother her nearly as much as the wings and headband with antennae bouncing on it. 

Susan was bouncing her gently on her hip, but it did nothing to lessen the look of frustration on the toddler’s face. 

When Annie and Kerry joined the others, Susan looked up at Kerry with a nervous smile on her face.

“She is not happy about this at all.” She looked down at Suzie and bounced her again. “Are you, Suzie?”

Suzie let out a grunt and swatted at the antennae before grunting again and furiously burying her head in Susan’s shoulder. Susan patted her on the back a few times and mouthed, _“Sleepy,”_ to Kerry. 

“Yeah. It’s getting late,” Kerry remarked, glancing up at the clock before looking down at Annie. “You, Suzie, and Grandma will need to get going if you want to go trick or treating.”

To her surprise, Annie deflated. But before she could ask why, there was a thunderous _boom_ outside as lightning flashed. 

Collectively, they looked up as the lights flickered overhead. 

“Grandma said we couldn’t go,” Annie said, continuing to look up for a moment before looking back at Kerry. “... And that’s why.”

Kerry smiled and stroked Annie’s head. Susan shrugged. 

“I guess you, Suzie, and Grandma will just have to go eat the candy I bought then,” she said with a sigh. Immediately, Suzie lifted her head from Susan’s shoulder. “Oh, did you hear the word ‘candy?’ Is that why you sat up?”

Suzie nodded, her antennae bouncing in reply. Susan chuckled and kissed her on the cheek before handing her back to Mildred. The older woman had been leaning against the desk, keeping her attention on the girls in an effort to not look around.

“You have to be good for Grandma to get candy,” Susan said, poking Suzie gently on the back. “Okay? Be good for Grandma.”

Mark, who had just returned to the desk after a (fruitless) session trying to brainstorm article ideas, frowned. 

He watched for a moment and Susan and Kerry gave their hugs and bade their goodbyes to their daughters before said daughters (and Kerry’s mom) donned their raincoats and started into the night.

He made sure Kerry had gone off to see her next patients before stepping closer to Susan and dropping his voice.

“Does Suzie call Kerry’s mom ‘Grandma?’” he asked quietly. 

Unless he was mistaken, Susan seemed to hesitate before answering.

“Yeah. But that’s just because _Annie_ calls her that and Suzie does everything Annie does,” she answered (a bit quickly). “Which Annie is starting to figure out she doesn’t like as much as she thought she did.”

Mark nodded slowly, but he was certain that, although she changed the subject to whether or not he was going to see Haleh sing at the Jazz Note later that night, a faint pink blush had crept onto her cheeks. 

Susan’s prediction that Suzie was sleepy had held true, as the toddler did not argue bath time nor bedtime and went down without a fight either. (Mildred was quite sure that she could hear her little baby snores before she even left the bedroom.)

When she arrived at Annie’s room, she found the girl sitting at her desk, drawing. She’d already combed her hair, changed into her pajamas for the night _(Beauty and the Beast),_ and hung her crutches up on the coat rack at the foot of her bed. 

For a moment, Mildred just watched her quietly from the doorway.

It was so easy to see not Annie, her granddaughter, but a six-year-old version of Kerry. Back when Kerry was chatty and vibrant and playful. When she thrived on goofing off just as much as she did reading. Back before they moved home to the states and Kerry stepped off the bus from her first day of school a different person than had left. 

Though she’d scolded Kerry for projecting her fears onto her daughter, Mildred hated to admit that she shared them. That she worried that one day it would be _Annie_ who got off the bus a changed person and would lose so much of the joy that she had. 

Kerry’s joy had been replaced with shame and though they had differing opinions on how to approach it, she and Mildred both, at least, had made it their goal that Annie’s never would be.

“Are you at a stopping point?” Mildred asked after a long moment. 

Annie nodded before making one final line and capping her marker. 

“It’s not done yet,” she said, rising from her chair. “I’ll have to finish it tomorrow.”

Mildred nodded as Annie started for her bed.

Even Kerry and Annie’s limps were similar. The key difference (though Mildred didn’t know the anatomical reasoning as to why) was that Kerry’s left foot tended to rotate inwards where Annie’s tended to drift outwards. But even so, the rhythm with which they walked was nearly identical.

As Annie climbed into bed, Mildred crossed to the windows to close the curtains. But as she reached for the second one, a bolt of lightning lit up the night sky, catching her off-guard. 

“Grandma, are you okay?” Annie asked as Mildred clutched at her chest. 

“Oh, yes,” Mildred said through gritted teeth. She straightened up and took a deep breath. “This heart of mine just can’t take a surprise the way it used to.”

She took another breath before taking a seat at the foot of Annie’s bed. Annie pulled up her right knee to her chest to give her room. 

“Alrighty,” Mildred said, exhaling slowly. “What kind of story should I tell tonight, hmm? Since it is Halloween, how about a ghost story?”

In the light from the lamp on Annie’s bedside table, Mildred could see the young girl’s eyes grow wide.

“You don’t like ghost stories?” Mildred asked, raising an eyebrow.

Annie pulled the covers up further.

“Not at bedtime.”

“Even if it’s a _nice_ ghost story?” 

Annie frowned. 

“Like the story is nice or the ghost is nice? Because ghosts _aren’t_ nice.”

“Oh, sure they are,” Midlred said, waving her away. “Ghosts _are_ nice.”

Annie’s eyes grew even wider. 

“You mean ghosts are real?”

“Well, I think they are,” Mildred replied with a small shrug. “I think we all have little ghosts inside us.”

“I don’t like that,” Annie stated, her eyes saucers.

“Well, let’s use another word than ‘ghost.’” Mildred thought for a moment. “How about ‘spirit?’ Because that’s all ghosts are - spirits. The spirits of people who aren’t here anymore.” 

Annie narrowed her eyes curiously, but that didn’t change the look of fear on her face. Mildred just gave her a small smile and patted her leg gently. 

“I think we all carry around the spirit of people who aren’t here anymore. People who have died and are gone,” Mildred began in a thoughtful voice. “But even though they aren’t here anymore, sometimes we see them or we hear them through the people who knew and loved them. Maybe they say something that person used to say or they do something or they act a certain way. And those of us who knew the person who isn’t here anymore say, ‘Wait! That was just like so-and-so!’ And just like that… you saw a ghost. But not a scary one. A loving, helpful one.”

Mildred paused to gauge Annie’s reaction. Her eyes were still wide, but they were full of her usual inquisitiveness, so Mildred felt it was safe to go on.

“Sometimes, I do things and think, ‘That was just like my mom’ or ‘That was just like my aunt.’ I’ll even say something and suddenly remember old teachers or people I haven’t seen in a very long time, people who are long gone and that I didn’t even know very well.”

Mildred leaned forward slightly and raised an eyebrow at Annie. 

“But you know who I see the ghost of the most?” When Annie shook her head, Mildred smiled and said, “Your Grandpa.”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than tears started to gather in her eyes. She inhaled deeply. 

“I see him the most in your Momma,” she thought aloud. “She doesn’t quite make the same jokes he did, but I see him when she helps people. Because that’s what he taught her to do…. And I did too, but it was mostly him.

“And sometimes, I see him in your Daddy….”

“Because Daddy would come over to your house and help Grandpa build the train set?” Annie asked. 

“Mm-hmm.” Mildred nodded wistfully. “Now, your Daddy _does_ make the same kind of jokes your Grandpa did, but he also listens like your Grandpa. And he has a lot of patience, which I know he learned from your Bubbe and Zayda, but I think he learned some from Grandpa too.”

Mildred let out a long sigh. 

“I even see him in myself sometimes. Well, I _hear_ him in myself. Like when I make a joke and think, ‘That was Henry’s doing.’ Or I do something the way he used to do it or the way he taught me to do it. And then I think of him and know he’s with me. And it makes me happy to know he’s still with me.

“But do you know where I see him that makes me the most happy? That makes me know that even though he’s not here anymore that all the good things he gave us are still with us?”

Annie shook her head again. 

“It’s when I see him in you,” Mildred said softly, gently poking Annie in the chest. “Sometimes you make the same kind of jokes he liked to make. Or when you see someone in need of help and ask what we can do to help them. And even though you were really little when he died, I know that’s him because that’s what he taught your Momma to do and that’s what she teaches you.”

Mildred drew in a deep breath and felt her heart swell both with pride and melancholy. The tears in her eyes were now flowing freely down her cheeks as she took Annie’s hand. 

“Oh, honey, how I wish you could have known him more,” she said as she squeezed Annie’s hands. “He would have had so much fun playing with you and teaching you things.”

Mildred took a deep breath and released one of Annie’s hands to wipe away the tears that had now nearly reached her sweater. 

“Do you remember him at all?”

Annie paused to think. 

“A little bit.”

“Mostly from pictures?” 

Annie nodded.

“Daddy talks about him when we play with the trains,” she said after another moment of thought. “Daddy says that Momma didn’t really help Grandpa with the trains and that’s why the train table lives at his house instead of here.”

Mildred gave a watery chuckle and sighed again. 

“That’s very true. Your mother preferred to just sit in the garage while your Grandpa worked instead of assisting in building anything,” Mildred said, smiling as she reminisced. “Your Daddy was nervous when we said he should have the train table even though it belonged to your Grandpa. He felt it should stay here, but your Momma and I both thought it should go to him. That way it would get more use.”

Annie smiled slightly and nodded. 

Henry Weaver’s elaborate train table had lived in the Weavers’ garage in Minneapolis from the time they moved back to Minneapolis in 1973 until Henry’s death almost twenty years later. Though already sizable in Kerry’s youth, when she (and Michael) left for college, it grew even bigger. 

After Henry died and Kerry called to tell her that she and Michael were getting a divorce, Mildred decided to sell the house and move to Chicago to be closer to the girls. And, of all the things that were moved, the train table was one of them.

Michael flew up to help disassemble it and help get it safely to what was now Kerry’s house, with the goal of one day rebuilding it in their basement for Annie to enjoy. But Kerry insisted it should go with him instead, as Henry would have preferred it to be taken care of by someone who knew what they were doing. So, instead, the table was rebuilt in the spare bedroom of Michael’s new apartment. All buildings were set back up, save for the miniature version of the Weaver’s house, which lived on Kerry’s dresser.

“If Grandpa were still alive, do you think he would make me one of the little figure people like he made of you and Momma and Daddy?” Annie asked, holding her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart to describe the height of the hand-painted figurines Henry made of his friends and family as part of the train table. 

“Oh, he most certainly would, my dear. Two little bright green crutches and all,” Mildred said with a chuckle. “But he would want you to help him.”

Annie nodded and then paused again. 

“Maybe Daddy and I could make a figure person the next time I’m at his house.” Then, she looked at Mildred, her little brow furrowing slightly. “Do you think Grandpa would like that?”

“I think Grandpa would _love_ that.” Mildred leaned forward to kiss Annie on the forehead. “I love you. Get some sleep.”

Mildred stood up from the bed with a bit of a groan, allowing Annie to shuffle underneath the covers. 

She saw the light go off right before she pulled the door closed behind her and stepped out into the dark quiet of the hallway.

Automatically, Mildred looked up and slightly to the right of the wall opposite Annie’s door. She couldn’t see the photo in the dark, but she knew which one was there. 

It was a picture of Henry and Annie sitting on a hospital bed. She was hooked up to an IV bag and in a cast from her torso to her knees, holding a bottle of juice and leaning her head against Henry as he read to her. Though none of the parents or grandparents present in the room had been in much of a picture-taking mood, Michael Sr. had captured the moment on a disposable camera because he felt the moment was too sweet to miss. What he nor the others knew was that it would be the last photograph taken of them together, which was the only reason it had a place of honor on the wall of photos in the hallway. 

Mildred stood there for a moment, staring at the place the photo hung before turning down the hall for her bedroom. 

It wasn’t just her heart that was old, she thought as she took a seat on her bed following her nightly routine. Her joints were old too (and long past the point of just ‘getting old.’)

She’d come across the medical equipment catalogue Kerry had used to order her and Annie’s crutches the previous summer a few days prior and had found herself perusing the selection of canes with careful consideration. But she stopped short of tearing the order form out of the back of it, wondering if she’d use it enough to warrant buying one.

But as she laid down and heard the cracks and pops of her knees and hips, she wondered if she didn’t think she’d use it much simply because she didn’t yet have one.

Mildred reached up to turn off the lamp, but stopped as she looked at the photo sitting on her bedside table. 

It was two photos actually, side-by-side in a frame. The one on the left was a black and white photo of her and Henry standing outside their house, Mildred with newborn Kerry in a blanket in her arms. The one on the right was the same photo, this time in color, recreated outside of this house with Michael, Kerry, and newborn Annie. 

She looked them both over for a moment before her eyes drifted to Henry. He looked just as cheerful and loving and bald in 1961 as he was when he died in 1992.

“Oh, Henry,” Mildred said with a sigh as she clicked off the lamp. “You sure are missing out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone. I hope you're staying safe and healthy. 
> 
> To start off with, I feel much better than I did when I posted the chapter yesterday. I was amidst the stress of being over-informed and exhausted and I needed to give myself permission to do some self-care in the form of taking a breath. 
> 
> The first part of this chapter was inspired by some lovely art from everybodyknows-everybodydies aka [wouldntyoulichentoknow.](https://wouldntyoulichentoknow.tumblr.com/)She had a prompt list for Tumblr followers that was outfits, so I requested Annie and Suzie in Halloween costumes. [The result was just too cute](https://wouldntyoulichentoknow.tumblr.com/post/618973902515961856/how-about-18-with-annie-and-maybe-suzie-too-if) and immediately made me think of this. 
> 
> The second part of this chapter draws heavily off of my prequel fic about Kerry called [The Summer of '77](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554961). That's where the characters of Mildred and Michael first appeared, along with Henry Weaver. Henry doesn't get to appear in this, but he needed to be talked about. Side note: I consciously realize that the three characters I just listed are all technically my _ER_ OCs, but I've been using/referring to them for so long that, when it occurred to me that they wre technically OCs, my next thought was "No, they're not. Those are Kerry's canon parents and ex-husband." I know they're not, but hopefully they seem real and fitting enough that you will accept them into the canon of your heart. 
> 
> Have a good rest of your day and night. Until next time.


	17. Ask Me No Questions

“Annie, that thing you’re kicking under the table is me,” Kerry said as she took a sip from her coffee.

“Oh. I thought it was the table.”

Shin-kicking aside, the morning spent with Annie that had ended at Doc Magoo’s had been very enjoyable. Suzie and Mildred had gone out to do some last minute shopping together, which gave Kerry the chance for some quality time with just Annie. 

It had occurred to her while they’d run errands together how rarely it was just the two of them together. Mildred had moved in pretty much the moment Michael moved out, and with her having been retired since 1976, she was almost always home. Times with just the two of them were few and far between, and even though Kerry loved having her mother around, she nevertheless wished she got more moments like this. 

“Momma, what’s all that for?” Annie asked, pointing at the paperwork sticking out of Kerry’s bag. 

Kerry glanced down at it and then let out a sigh. 

“Momma’s working on a project,” she said simply. “One of Momma’s friends is… is struggling with some stuff, so I’m trying to help her.”

Annie looked up from blowing bubbles in her orange juice. 

“What’s the matter with her?”

Kerry considered how to answer for a long moment. 

“Has anyone ever told you about the letters ‘HIV’ before?” Kerry asked, observing Annie closely for a moment. “Like Daddy or Adam?”

Annie shook her head. Kerry nodded and took a deep breath. 

“Well, HIV is a type of virus and it’s a… a special kind of virus that makes your body work against you, so that you get sick easier than healthy people do,” Kerry explained in a careful, slow voice. “The only way you can get it is through blood and stuff like that. It’s not like a cold where you get it just from somebody coughing. 

“And for a long time, there were a lot of people who got sick from it, but the people in charge like the President and the drug companies just ignored them. They thought the people who got sick from it were bad people and that they deserved to be sick. Which is just not true. No one deserves to be sick with anything. They’re not bad people. They’re just people. Like you and me.”

Kerry paused to inhale deeply. Annie was watching her closely.

“My friend found out that she had it a few months ago,” Kerry continued in a quieter voice than before. “She’s a Physician’s Assistant, which is sort of like a doctor. And even though we help people who are sick or hurt that have HIV and are always very careful and follow directions so we don’t get sick, the hospital doesn't think it works for her to do that too. So, I’m helping to figure out what we can do to help her so that she can continue to do her work and help people.”

Kerry observed Annie closely as the young girl absorbed the words. 

“Are you helping her get better?” she asked slowly. “So, she won’t be sick anymore?”

“No, she has a doctor for that. And…. And, sadly, the virus doesn’t go away. But she can take medicine to make sure that she doesn’t get sicker.”

“Is she gonna die?” Annie asked in a voice filled with unmistakable sadness.

“I don’t think so,” Kerry replied, shaking her head. “She’s been taking her medicine the way she’s supposed to. She’s actually seeing her doctor this morning to get a check up. She’s going to meet me here when she’s done. After Grandma picks you up.”

Annie nodded slowly, but she still looked very concerned. 

“So, your friend is going to be okay,” she said, watching Kerry’s face closely to determine whether she’s on the right track or not.

“Yes. I think she’s going to be okay.” Kerry nodded and then sighed again. “And because she’s okay, we need her help to take care of people in the ER. That’s why I have all this stuff with me. Because we’re going to work on writing some rules on how to keep her and other people safe.”

Annie let out a sigh of relief and then nodded again. 

Despite the heaviness of the topic, Kerry couldn’t help but smile slightly at Annie’s concern. She took Annie’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly. Then, a thought occurred to her and she let go of Annie’s hand to pull something out of the bag. 

It was one of the thicker documents she had. Kerry pulled it out and turned it around so Annie could see the title page. 

“Do you know what this is?”

Annie looked at it for a second. 

“It has my birthday on it,” she said, pointing to the date on the top of the page. 

“Yes, it has your birthday on it. But do you remember what Momma told you happened on your birthday?”

Annie looked thoroughly confused for a moment before slowly answering, “I was born?”

Kerry opened her mouth to reply and then closed it. She conceded the answer with a small shrug of acknowledgement. 

“Yes, you were born. But do you remember what  _ else _ Momma said happened? Other than you being born?”

Annie thought for a second. 

“No.” Before Kerry could remark on her failure as a parent, Annie perked up. “Wait. The law thing.”

“Yes. The law thing. This law thing,” she said, tapping the copy of  _ The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 _ on the table. “Do you remember what the law thing does?”

“It gives us the right to….” Annie recited slowly. “The right to….”

“Accomodation, participation, and protection against discrimination,” Kerry finished for her, counting the list off on her fingers. 

“The right to the -ations,” Annie repeated with a nod.

“Meaning that you have the right to ask your school to change things or to let you do things differently than kids who don’t use crutches, because you have just as much of a right to be at school and learn and be happy like anyone else. And it means that no one can tell you that you’re not allowed to go places or do things because you’re disabled. Remember?”

Annie nodded sincerely, but before Kerry could ask her if she really understood or was just placating her, she spotted Mildred coming up from the curb. She then only had the chance to help Annie get her coat on and kiss her goodbye before Annie was whisked off back home, leaving Kerry alone at the table.

She reviewed her notes for a while, every so often sipping her coffee or checking her watch. 

She was supposed to meet with Mark and Anspaugh at 10:30 am to discuss hospital policy for HIV+ healthcare workers and she wanted the chance to at least check in with Jeanie before she had to leave. 

Jeanie showed up about a quarter ‘til, apologizing for her lateness.

“It’s okay,” Kerry replied, waving Jeanie away as she removed her scarf from over her hair. “I’m just glad you made it. I was starting to think you weren’t coming.”

“Dr. Angelo’s office was really backed up,” Jeanie explained with a deep exhale. 

“So, you did see her?” At Jeanie’s nod, Kerry asked, “Well, what did she say?”

To Kerry’s relief, a smile crept onto Jeanie’s face.

“The tests no longer detect any viral load,” she happily informed Kerry. “I guess the drug cocktail is working.”

“Jeanie, that is great news.”

At the sincerity in Kerry’s voice, Jeanie’s smile grew a little more.

“Maybe I don’t have to get a lawyer now. Maybe the hospital will let it go.” Kerry didn’t mean to give her a skepticism, but apparently she did, seeing as Jeanie’s face fell slightly. “I know. It’s still transmittable.”

“That doesn’t mean the hospital can keep you shuffling papers for the rest of your career,” Kerry said firmly.

“If I still have a career.”

Kerry was about to slide out of the booth to put her coat on and start her way up to Anspaugh’s office, but Jeanie’s comment stopped her. 

She let out a sigh and shook her head. 

“I have a meeting with Dr. Greene and Dr. Anspaugh in ten minutes,” she stated, glancing at her watch. “And I, for one, think you’re too valuable to rubber stamp admits all day long.”

Jeanie’s smile returned even just a little bit, giving Kerry permission to continue getting up. 

She pulled her coat on and threaded her arm through her crutch, before laying a hand on Jeanie’s shoulder. 

“No matter what happens,” she said in a low but earnest voice, “this is great news.”

Kerry nodded sincerely, leading Jeanie to give her a grateful smile. 

But no matter how great the news that Jeanie’s viral load was undetectable was, it did nothing to alleviate Kerry’s frustration as she sat in Anspaugh’s office with Mark. 

“You want the two of  _ us _ to decide?” she asked incredulously. 

“I’m sure none of us in this room would want anyone on our team endangering patients in any way,” Anspaugh remarked as he walked from the door to his desk. “As Attendings, you’re the closest to the everyday workings of the ER.”

“So, there’s no hospital-wide policy?” Mark asked, frowning.

“Legal advises that we handle it department by department,” Anspuagh replied.

“So, if we get sued then it’s the individual Attending’s butt that’s on the line?” 

Mark wanted desperately to say which Attending’s butt it should be on that line, seeing as one of the two of them had chosen to keep Jeanie’s HIV status a secret and it certainly wasn’t him. But instead of pointing this out (and in an effort to decrease his guilt over breaking HIPAA to look at Jeanie’s file without her permission), he gave Kerry a pointed look. And, to his surprise, she seemed to be purposely avoiding eye contact with him.

“Let me remind you, Dr. Greene,” Anspaugh bega, “that if we were aware there was an HIV+ healthcare worker here at County and the public got wind of it and started filing suits,  _ all _ of our butts would be on the line.”

“So, HIV+ healthcare workers can be fired because the hospital doesn’t want to be sued,” Kerry concluded tersely

“No,” Mark said rather firmly. “In Illinois, it’s forbidden to fire any employee because they are HIV+.”

“In theory,” Kerry pointed out. “But people have been forced to quit-”

“Nobody’s forcing anyone to quit,” Mark shot back, cutting Kerry off.

“What about restricting their duties to the point where they’re no longer working within their job description?” Kerry pressed.

“I wouldn’t presume to tell you two how to run your department,” said the Chief of Staff of the entire hospital. He handed a stack of books to Mark. “There are to give you an idea of the current CDC findings, Illinois state law, impending legal cases, and various NIH and journal reports.”

Mark had taken the stack of books from Anspaugh and immediately handed them off to Kerry, presuming (correctly) that she would want to look through them first. But as soon as he passed them over, Anspaugh handed him another stack. 

“Now, look,” Anspaugh said, glancing between him and Kerry. “I know you two have had your differences in the past. Do you think you two can work together to solve this?”

The question hung long and tense in the air. Anspaugh was about to repeat himself when Kerry let out a huff.

“Absolutely.”

Anspaugh looked from her to Mark, who was staring at Kerry, his mouth working wordlessly. 

“Sure,” he said at last. 

“Wonderful,” Anspaugh said with a smile that was both warm and grandfatherly as well as distinctly dismissive.

Mark was up and out the door before Kerry had even slid her crutch onto her arm to stand up. 

To get some more information regarding the drug cocktail (and in an effort to not have to go down to the ER too soon), Kerry started towards the elevators with the intention of stopping off on the floor below to visit Infectious Disease before they got to work on the policy.

She really did  _ not _ know what Mark’s problem had been lately. 

Things had been very competitive between them lately given the fact that there was one tenure spot open in the ER and two of them were vying for it, but it had felt lately like something else had been going on. 

She was fairly certain it had something to do with Halloween, but could not for the life of her figure out what it was.

After Mildred took the girls home, she, Susan, and Mark had all finished their respective shifts before going down to the Jazz Note to watch Haleh sing. She had spent most of the evening discussing some of her article ideas with Anspaugh while Mark and Susan talked. Mark had even asked Susan to dance at one point.

Anspaugh had excused himself around that same time, leaving Kerry to watch Susan and Mark from her seat near the bar. 

Susan looked like she was having so much fun that Kerry almost wished it was  _ she _ who’d asked her to dance instead of Mark. But the worry of suspicious looks and the apprehension of dancing in front of people had kept her in her seat.

The only thing Kerry could think of that could have pissed Mark off was that she’d had to interrupt Susan and Mark’s dancing to tell Susan she was heading out. Maybe they’d been deep in conversation or something and she’d cut in at the wrong second. But the little voice in Kerry’s head told her it was probably just that he saw her as a threat for that tenure spot. 

Still, that didn’t explain why he’d gone so far to find out Jeanie’s HIV status or had been so frustrated with Kerry for having kept it a secret. She’d always figured he was the kind of man who would do that for a friend, so his agitation with her seemed exceptionally off-putting.

Kerry had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t noticed she’d stepped off the elevator and had turned down the hall towards Infectious Disease. 

She was so deep in her own head, in fact, that she didn’t immediately recognize the tall man who stepped out of the HIV clinic ahead of her. Not, at least, until her brain processed the familiarity of dark curls and glasses.

And once it did, the present that she’d just been pulled back to a second before suddenly felt like it had fallen out from beneath her. 

“Michael?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three chapters? In three days? It's more likely than you think. Also, I took the day off from work today, meaning I could stay up late last night to finish the last one _and_ got to spend time today working on this one.
> 
> This is one of four chapters taking place in Season 3, including the last chatper. I apologize if it feels like we're speedrunning through the season, but given that the entire first third of the other AU takes place in Season 3 (aka the same length of this AU so far), I feel like I pretty well exhausted it over in that one. Most of the events would occur in pretty much the same way as it would in this AU anyways.
> 
> Besides, I 'm eager to get to Season 4 ebcause that's when stuff is _really_ gonna start picking. I will warn you ahead of time, though, that I am _not_ going to cover "ambush" again, because I already did that in "unexpected circumstances" and it was the [hardest thing I've ever done for a fanfiction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901180/chapters/46230337). (And also one of the things I am most proud of in any fanfiction, but still.)
> 
> That's all for now. Hope you're well. 
> 
> Until next time.


	18. ...And I'll Tell You No Lies

Michael looked up at the sound of his name and, upon seeing Kerry, immediately paled. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked nervously. “Why aren’t you downstairs?”

“I had a meeting. But it doesn’t matter what I’m doing here. What are  _ you _ doing here?”

Michael closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, before gently laying a hand on Kerry’s arm to move her out of the middle of the hallway and off to the side. 

“Adam had an appointment today.”

“In the HIV clinic?” 

“Well, oncology told us that they didn’t really treat Kaposi’s.”

Kerry’s heart dropped, and not just from the despair in Michael’s voice. 

Kaposi’s sarcoma was a rare type of cancer that affected the lining of blood and lymph vessels. But beyond being just cancer, it was considered an opportunistic infection. In other words, it didn’t just mean that the patient was HIV+, but that they had full-blown AIDS.

“Michael, you-” Kerry took a deep breath. “You didn’t tell me that he was-”

“He didn’t know.”

Michael clamped a hand over his mouth in an effort to keep from losing it. Kerry rubbed his arm reassuringly before dread overtook her.

“Michael, if he’s…. Does that mean that you’re-”

“No,” he said, cutting her off with a shake of his head. “No. I don’t…. I don’t know how, but I’ve been tested twice now and it’s been negative both times.”

Kerry felt herself let out a small sigh of relief, but it was short-lived.

“Where did he get it?” she heard herself ask before she could stop herself. Thinking of Jeanie, she dropped her voice even lower and asked, “Did he cheat on you?”

Michael shook his head. 

“No. He…. He thinks he got it when he was in college,” he said quietly. “He said he messed around with a few older men when he was young, all of whom told him they were negative. But...”

“You think they lied to him?” 

Michael began to shake his head, but stopped himself. 

“I don’t know. I assumed that they probably didn’t know, but maybe they did and….” 

His words drifted off as his mind moved from the past to the present.

“He had a lesion on his neck. I saw it growing and thought it was…. I thought it was a mole. I thought it was melanoma. I told him he should get it looked at.” Michael bit his lip. “But I went with him when he got the biopsy and when they called and said it wasn’t, I…. Suddenly, I knew. Even before they said it. 

“Because he’d been sick lately. He’d had flu-like symptoms for weeks and-and I had kept thinking how weird it was that, if he had the flu, why hadn’t  _ I _ gotten it too? Why didn’t Annie?”

Michael pressed the palms of his hands into his forehead before angrily dragging his hands down his face.

“I should have known,” he said, his growing anger directed at himself. “I should have known that’s what it was. I saw it getting worse for weeks. Why didn’t I know? What’s the point of being a doctor if I can’t catch things like that?”

“Michael, you’re not his doctor, you’re his partner,” Kerry said as reassuringly as she could. “You’re his… you’re his husband.”

Michael looked at her for a long moment.

“If I’m his husband, then that means it’s my job to take care of him. To look after him,” he said in a small voice. “And I didn’t.”

“You  _ are _ taking care of him. You  _ are  _ looking after him.” Kerry motioned for him to look around. “That’s why you’re here. You brought him here to take care of him. To help him get better.”

But at the blank look on Michael’s face, Kerry blanched. 

“Michael, he can get better….” Kerry said slowly, her eyes scanning his. “Right?”

Michael swallowed hard. 

“His T cells are really low,” he said in a voice barely more than a whisper. “The antiretrovirals should help, but… but there’s no guarantee of anything.”

A moment of silence fell between them as the reality of the words fell over them.

“I have to tell Annie.”

Michael’s voice was it’s smallest yet, his words sounding both like a realization and an expression of defeat.

“She’s… she’s a smart girl,” Kerry said quietly, thinking of the conversation she’d just had with Annie only an hour or so ago that suddenly didn’t feel like a coincidence. “She’ll…. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

Michael considered this for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he said with a small shrug of acknowledgement. “I just wish she didn’t have to.”

There was a certain…  _ something _ in his voice, a candor she wasn’t sure he’d meant to express but that made Kerry think that this particular topic wasn’t the only thing Michael wished Annie didn’t have to understand.

And though he didn’t say it, she was right. To Michael, this was just another in a long line of truths and consequences that most kids wouldn’t have to understand until they were much older, if at all. 

Most of the things on Michael’s list were things Kerry shared responsibility and guilt for save for his personal perspective of shame, but others were things Kerry was not aware he felt guilty for.

Michael had figured out that he liked men during his sophomore year of college. Though he’d had a deep-seated knowledge of his attraction to them for a while, he hadn’t truly realized it until he learned the word for it. And, given that it was 1981, the first he’d learned that two men could fall in love with each other was in the context of death.

Guilty and scared of all the potential repercussions should he ever make his feelings known, he asked Kerry out the next time they were on break. After all, she  _ was _ his best friend and he figured that dating her would be a lot like hanging out with her, which was something he knew that he liked to do.

In other words, she was safe. She was comfortable. 

At least until she started to broach the subject of marriage a few years later, at which point he got scared again. If they got married, then he would have to decide never to come out or at some point break her heart by doing so. Still, the fear of the former won out and, at the very least, he knew that if he had to spend the rest of his life married to a woman, she’d be the one he’d choose.

His feelings and his fear never truly went away, though. And when Kerry came to him in the late fall of 1989 with the wide-eyed realization that her recent nausea was  _ not _ due to food poisoning as she’d thought but rather their drunken anniversary celebration the month prior, his fear took on a new form.

It would combine with his guilt in a wholly new way, especially as the stress of pregnancy would require Kerry to go on full bed rest at seven months. She’d had to defer her third year of residency for a year, only to go back for a few months and then defer again as they learned of Annie’s hip. 

Like Kerry, Michael carried an enormous amount of guilt over Annie’s hip.

In part it was due to the fact that, because Mt. Sinai informed Kerry that, since she’d taken so much time off, in order to finish her residency, she’d have to completely do the whole thing over again, internship and all. Kerry submitted to it willingly under the promise that they wouldn’t make her go through Match again and instead would hold a spot, but Michael didn’t quite believe that she didn’t hold it against him. 

But mostly, his guilt over Annie was the same as Kerry’s. If he had held his ground and not allowed himself to be swayed by the pediatric surgeon, if he’d done more to stop them when they were in the middle of the surgery, then perhaps things would have turned out differently. He’d pursued the lawsuit out of a need for justice and retribution, but mostly to try and make up for what he’d put his daughter through and what the consequences of it would put her through later.

Annie was, after all, his pride and joy, perfect to him in every way, and his part in fulfilling G-d’s promise to Isaac that his descendants would be as numerous as there were stars in the sky because his father Abraham had obeyed the Lord’s wishes. A new branch from his family tree, born not of a Jewish mother (to his parents dismay), but nevertheless of the intertwining of two trees become one.

And perhaps if it weren’t for the fact that he’d severed where their branches entangled when he decided he could hold the truth back no longer, he would have been willing to tell Kerry all this.

Or, at the very least, his sorrow that if Adam died, he feared no one would know what he meant to him or to Annie. And the shame that that fear did not outweigh the fear of sharing the truth.

“It’s Tuesday which is normally a night that she’d be coming over,” Kerry said quietly. “Do you want me to bring her?”

Michael shook his head. 

“Kerry, it’s Christmas Eve-”

“And she’s Jewish,” Kerry finished with the smallest of smiles. “The only thing she’s celebrating the arrival of tonight is Santa Claus.”

But Michael just shook his head again. 

“No. She should stay with you. Bring her on Thursday. As normal” he said in a firmer voice than he’d used so far. “That way…. That way I have time to think of what to say.”

Part of Kerry wanted to push him further to take Annie for the night, but he was too close to breaking down to do so without crossing the line. So, instead, she just pulled him into a hug. 

As they broke apart, she held him at arm’s length, watching him closely for a long moment. 

Annie might have looked like her in almost every way, but if there was one thing Kerry was sure of, it was that she had Michael’s eyes. 

“I won’t tell Annie,” she said softly, “but can I tell my mom?”

Michael nodded. 

“Please. And please ask her to pray for him.”

Kerry nodded. She was about to hug him again before heading back downstairs when the thought struck her.

“Michael, have you….” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Have you told your parents about him?”

Michael took a deep breath of his own and then looked down at his shoes. 

“Not yet.” Then, he looked back up at her and pulled himself up to full height. “But I will. Because…. Because he’s my husband. And I owe him that much.”

By the time Kerry had walked Michael to where Adam waited for him in the car and had bade them both goodbye, it had been nearly half an hour since she’d left the meeting with Anspaugh. 

She’d all but forgotten about her project until she felt the need for a cup of coffee to clear her head. 

“Where have you been? I thought you were right behind me.” 

Kerry looked up in alarm to see Mark sitting at the table in the lounge, surrounded by the books and articles that Anspaugh had given them. 

“I…. I got held up upstairs,“ she said, continuing for the coffee maker. 

“Well, I’m ready whenever you are,” Mark said with a callous shrug before sitting back in his seat. “But please. Take your time. Get a cup of coffee. It’s not like there’s stuff to do around here.”

Kerry made a conscious decision to set the mug down before turning from the counter to look at him. And in an instant, her frustrations with him combined with the heartache she felt for Michael and Adam and Annie and channeled into a rush of anger.

“Did you ever apologize to her, Mark?”

Mark, who had not been prepared for this question at all, stared for a moment.

“What?”

“Did you ever apologize to Jeanie?” Kerry said again. “For breaking the law? For snooping in her personal health information without her consent?”

Mark exhaled in something just short of a huff. 

“Look. I know that I crossed a line, but I didn’t break any laws-”

_ “Yes, you did,” _ Kerry snapped. “The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. HIPAA. It just went into effect in August and you broke it within two months.”

“HIPAA applies to protecting our patients’ health information,” Mark stated firmly. 

“No. It applies to every American and anyone one treated in the American healthcare system,” Kerry shot back. “Which means it applies to us just as much as it applies to all of our patients.

“So, not only did you violate her trust as a co-worker and employer, you violated a very new and very  _ federal _ law to do what you did. Honestly, Mark, it should be  _ your _ ass whose career is on the line. Not Jeanie’s.”

“Enough with the end-of-Jeanie’s-career stuff,” Mark said, waving her away. “No one is firing Jeanie.”

“No, they’re not going to  _ fire _ her. They’re just going to do everything in her power to never let her practice in her role and capacity again.” Kerry drew in a seething breath. “You’re the one making a big deal out of this, Mark. Because, the last time I checked, universal precautions go both ways. If you’re willing to help a bloody trauma patient without learning their status first because you’re wearing PPE, then you should be perfectly fine letting Jeanie do her damn job.”

“I’m fine with that because they’re the  _ patients _ , Kerry. They come to us for help. Not to potentially be exposed to a dangerous virus.”

“That can only be transmitted through blood,” Kerry hissed. “We’re far more likely to get exposed by a needle stick from a withholding patient than a patient is from us.”

“And that’s something we understand from the beginning,” Mark pointed out. He crossed his arms. “We understand that risk. We know from the get-go that we could be exposed because of our work. But patients don’t assume that’s a risk in getting care here. So, it’s our responsibility to figure out how we inform them that that is a risk they are taking.”

“Because you’re more scared of getting sued than you are taking care of your own. And, you know, frankly? That really surprises me, Mark. Because you’ve never struck me as the kind of person who favors liability over humanity.”

Silence fell between them as they both considered the validity of the others’ statements. 

It took a lot of effort for Kerry to not let her thoughts spin too far out of her control. She held tight to the end of each strand so they didn’t take her too far away from this conversation to the conversations that were had and would have to be had very soon.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment. When she opened them, she found herself looking at one of the books on the table. 

“We shouldn’t be the ones figuring this out,” she thought aloud as she stepped forward towards the table to pick it up.

“I agree,” Mark said with a sigh. “But the hospital says each department has to take care of it themselves.”

“No,” Kerry replied, shaking her head. “No. I meant  _ we _ shouldn’t be doing it. The two of us should not be deciding this.”

She looked at it for a second before turning it around and dropping it back on the table so that its cover faced towards Mark.

_ “The Americans with Disabilities Act?” _

“Ensures the rights to accommodation, participation, and protection from discrimination,” Kerry informed him (in a much more stern voice than she’d used earlier with Annie, though just as sincere). “I wouldn’t be okay with someone deciding my accommodations without my input and guidance on what is and is not within my capabilities and comfort. So, we shouldn’t be doing that to Jeanie.”

Mark stared at the copy of the  _ ADA _ for a moment before, to Kerry’s surprise, he nodded. 

“You’re right. Anspaugh left it up to us because we’re the Attendings, but he didn’t say that we were the only ones who could work on it.”

It would take several hours to finally get the chance to sit down with Jeanie, but before they all left for the day, they had a decent first draft. Not perfect by any means, but certainly the first thing that had gone right since breakfast. 

Kerry considered this as she slowly climbed the front porch steps, taking care not to step on the icy patches she saw twinkling in the light of the street lamp. But the cold of Chicago in December that always seemed to set into her faster than she was ready for evaporated the moment she stepped inside the front door (and not just because of the furnace).

Mildred lay on the far couch, gently rubbing Suzie’s back as the toddler lay asleep on her chest. And when Kerry kicked off her shoes and stepped around the couch into the living room, she found Annie cuddled into Susan’s side. She appeared nearly ready to fall asleep, but perked up the moment she saw Kerry. But instead of saying anything, Annie just patted the open spot on the couch next to her. 

Kerry smiled weakly and sat down next to her, only for Annie to motion for her to scoot even closer. Figuring the directive was Annie’s effort to be able to cuddle both her and Susan at once, Kerry obliged and moved to make an Annie sandwich (which greatly pleased the sandwich-ee).

Kerry couldn’t help but wonder if Annie was wearing the blue and white Hanukkah pajamas that Michael’s parents had gifted her because she was making a statement on this, the night celebrating the Christian Messiah’s birth, or just simply because she liked them. But regardless of the reason, it was this wondering that made Kerry realize exactly what Michael had been asking for when he was asking for prayers. 

He was asking for a miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm gonna put on my American Healthcare Nerd hat here for a moment and say that, if an actual doctor did what Mark did when he looked in Jeanie's file to find out her HIV status, he not only would likely have been filed, but Jeanie would have been able to sue the hospital for _a lot_ _of money._ HIPAA is nothing to fuck around with and it would have just gone into effect around the time Season 3 aired. (Also, when Kerry tried to make changes to the board in "Doctor Carter, I Presume" and uses their Social Security Numbers instead of their names.... That would not be okay either. But that, at least, would have been a "This is not an appropriate way to protect PHI" way and not an "I am actively flaunting the federal statute" way.)
> 
> If you're not American or you're American but have never worked in a healthcare setting, one thing American healthcare gets _right_ (and perhaps the _only_ thing it gets right) is our approach to healthcare privacy. But you guys don't really want to hear me rant about healthcare, so I'll just stop here.... For now. That is, after all, one of the reasons I enjoy writing _ER_ fanfiction. In other words, if JRR Tolkein could use his academic background to to influence his work on _The Lord of the Rings_ , then I'm going to use _ER_ as an excuse to talk about healthcare through the one (1) character in television that Gets Me a.k.a is VERY passionate about healthcare adminsitration.
> 
> That's all for tonight. Hope you're doing well and doing what's right, in whatever form that may take for you. 
> 
> Until next time.


	19. Tribes

The most common misconception about miracles is that they are instantaneous.

It took until Abram was ninety-nine years old before God fulfilled his promise to him and his wife Sarai that they would have a child. The birth of Jesus didn’t happen until nine months after the Immaculate Conception, and, even with the power of faith and modern medicine combined, Adam’s health took a long time to improve.

Though the ‘cocktail’ of antiretrovirals would eventually render the virus both undetectable and untransmittable and even raise his T cell count to within the healthy range, this feat would take several years to accomplish and would not be celebrated fully until after the turn of the millennium. 

This meant that, during the first few months of 1997, there was no guarantee of each day that passed. 

Every conversation about plans became a dance of avoidance. No one made arrangements for anything more than a few weeks in advance. Doctors appointments and lab tests took precedence over holidays. Even the custody arrangement that had stood untouched since their separation that saw Annie staying with Michael on Tuesday nights and Thursday through Saturday at sundown (save for certain holidays and on-call schedules) began to get shuffled. 

Any minor transmittable illness - coughs, colds, infections - could potentially be deadly to Adam as his body began to build his immune system back up. Michael and Kerry’s care in explaining this to Annie meant that the young girl understood this, but it didn’t necessarily make it any easier when someone in the Weaver-Lewis-Levin household came down with the sniffles, meaning Annie couldn’t go see them until the illness had passed. 

She’d been a good sport about it for the most part, but as the months marched on, it was clear that it was taking its toll on the young girl’s mental health. 

Her sisterly frustration with Suzie occasionally led to angry outbursts at the almost-two-year-old that it was clear Annie had no control over, given the genuine regret that followed. But that was nothing compared to the meltdowns that could occur at any potential sign of sickness. Even the sneezes of spring allergies could potentially bring on tears unless they were accompanied by reassurances that it happened every year and that Abba (the Hebrew word for father that Annie had started using to refer to Adam) could not get sick from them.

Things in Adam’s health began to look up at the end of March when Michael reported that his viral load had begun to drop. It was a slow decline, but still showed progress by mid-April, which improved Annie’s anxiety considerably as it became less and less likely that Adam would die before she turned seven.

This was the reason for the particularly good mood she was in when Susan had picked her up after school and brought her in with her to County so that Michael could pick her up after Adam’s appointment. However, she was pulled away by a resident, leaving Kerry to settle her in the lounge.

“Alright,” Kerry said as she led Annie down the hall towards the lounge. “Daddy and Abba won’t be done for a few more minutes, so you’ll need to wait in here.”

“Why can’t I wait at the desk?” Annie asked with a backwards glance towards the Admit area.

“Because the people at the desk are working and I don’t want you distracting them.”

“I won’t distract them,” she said sincerely. “I promise.”

“Well, still. It’s safer for you to wait in here,” Kerry said as she pushed the door to the lounge open. “Things have been a little tense around here lately. If something were to happen, I wouldn’t want you in the middle of it.”

Annie pouted but nevertheless swung herself forward into the lounge. But just as Kerry made to follow her, she stopped suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” Kerry asked before following Annie’s line of sight. “Oh. Hi, Rachel. I didn’t realize you were in here. Are you waiting on your dad?”

The eight-year-old nodded from her place at the table where Mark had gotten her some printer paper and a pen to occupy her until his shift was over. 

“Well, Annie here is waiting on her dad too,” Kerry said, laying a hand on Annie’s shoulder. “Do you mind if she waits in here with you?”

“No. That’s fine,” Rachel replied before sweeping her papers closer to her to make space for Annie. 

“Wonderful. Thank you.” Kerry gently urged Annie forward. “Annie brought her markers with her. I’m sure if you were willing to share some of your paper with her, she’d be willing to share her markers with you.”

Annie’s brow furrowed in an attempt to communicate to her mother her confusion as to why she was expected to share her markers with a total stranger, but Kerry just gave her a small nod of encouragement and left.

Annie looked at the door for a moment before slowly turning back towards the table. She and Rachel eyed each other for a long moment before Annie slid her crutches off and hung them on the back of the chair, set her backpack on the ground, and then sat down.

She opened up the backpack and pulled out her box of markers. She set it on the table in front of them like a peace offering. And, in return Rachel (begrudgingly) slid a couple pieces of blank paper across the table towards her. 

Annie muttered a word of thanks and pulled the blue marker out of the box. Rachel hesitated, still eyeing Annie with curiosity.

“How old are you?” Rachel asked after a long minute. 

“I’m six,” Annie replied simply. “How old are you?”

“I’m eight.” Rachel narrowed her eyes at Annie. “If you’re six, does that mean that you’re in Kindergarten?”

“No, I’m in the first grade.I was in Kindergarten last year.” At the sight of Rachel’s narrowed eyes, she narrowed hers too. “What grade are _you_ in?”

“I’m in the third grade,'' Rachel said with a bit of haughtiness in her tone. Then, she nodded behind Annie. “What are those?”

Annie turned around to look but found nothing other than a couch and some lockers. She turned back to Rachel, frowning.

“What are what?”

“Those,” Rachel said, pointing over Annie’s shoulder at the cuff of one of the crutches. 

Annie looked again, following her finger. 

“Oh. Those are my crutches,” Annie replied before looking back at Rachel. “They help me walk.”

“So, you can’t walk if you don’t use them?” Rachel asked as her brow furrowed. 

“No, I can. I just don’t like to,” Annie assured her. “My Momma uses one too. Because we have weird hips.”

“Why?”

Annie thought for a long moment and then shrugged. 

“What do you like to do for fun?” Rachel asked, picking the green(e) marker out of the box.

“I like to read. And I like to go swimming,” Annie informed her as she resumed her drawing. “What do you like to do?”

“I like reading and swimming too,” she said after a moment of thought. “But I think I like ice skating best.”

Annie took a moment to consider this.

“I’ve never been ice skating.”

“You probably couldn’t if you need those to walk,” Rachel remarked. 

Annie looked at her confusedly.

“Couldn’t I use them if I went ice skating?”

It was Rachel’s turn to take a moment of consideration. Then, she just shrugged. 

“It’s getting too warm outside to ice skate now,” she said as she drew a circle on her paper. “But during the winter, they have an ice rink near my Daddy’s house. I went ice skating there with him and Miss Susan. And Miss Susan’s niece Suzie too.”

At the sound of Susan’s name, Annie looked up in wide-eyed amazement.

“You know Miss Susan _too?”_

Rachel was momentarily taken aback by Annie’s excitement, but she nodded, nonetheless.

“Yeah. How do _you_ know her?”

“She lives in my house!” Annie excitedly informed her. “She and Suzie both do.”

“Why does she live in your house?” Rachel asked hesitantly.

“Because she needed help taking care of Suzie and my Grandma said she could help her and that she could move in too if she wanted to,” Annie explained with a wide grin. Then, her grin faded into a more contemplative look. “She doesn’t really call Suzie her niece anymore, though. She calls Suzie her daughter now, since she adopted Suzie last summer.”

Rachel nodded slowly at this new information before she smiled. She leaned forward, which led Annie to as well.

“Can I tell you a secret?” At Annie’s nod, Rachel smirked and then whispered, “I think my Daddy’s going to ask Miss Susan out on a date.”

She sat back in her chair as her smirk grew into a satisfied smile. Annie sat up some too, but her expression was one of intense confusion.

“I don’t think he can do that,” she said slowly. 

“Why not? He likes Miss Susan a lot and he says he thinks Miss Susan likes him too. So, he’s gonna ask her on a date.”

“He can’t ask her out on a date because she’s already dating someone,” Annie said firmly, a protective sort of anger rising in her voice.

“Well, my Daddy is Miss Susan’s best friend and she never told him that she was dating someone,” Rachel said the same anger rose in hers. “Maybe you just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I _do_ know what I’m talking about,” Annie shot back through gritted teeth. “He _can’t_ ask Miss Susan out on a date because she’s already dating my _mom.”_

For a moment, Rachel just stared at her, before she made a look of confused frustration.

“That’s not true. You’re lying,” Rachel said with sneer. “Girls can’t date other girls. They can only date _boys.”_

“Nu-uh. Girls can date other girls and boys can date other boys,” Annie hissed before slamming her marker down on the table. “I know because my Daddy dates a boy and my Momma dates Susan. Which means that Suzie is _actually_ my sister.”

Susan happened to be walking down the hallway as the argument grew inside the lounge. And at the sound of the angry _“Nu-UH”_ / _“Yeah HUH,”_ she paused at the door and peeked inside. 

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,” Susan said loudly, rushing into the lounge as she saw the two girls readying for a face-off. “What’s going on in here?”

Both Annie and Rachel immediately looked up at her as she knelt down at the table.

“I told Annie that my Daddy was going to ask you out on a date and she said that he couldn’t because you were already dating her mom,” Rachel said, the beginnings of angry tears in her eyes. “And I said that wasn’t possible because girls are supposed to date boys.”

Susan couldn’t help the way her eyes grew wide at Rachel’s words. She glanced between both girls, before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. 

“Okay. I need to go get your parents, so all of us can talk,” she said, straightening up. “Rachel, come sit over here.”

Susan pointed at the couch. Rachel didn’t immediately move, but when Susan repeated the gesture with more emphasis, she switched seats, glaring at Annie the whole time.

“Now, you two stay where you are,” Susan ordered, looking between Rachel and Annie. “I mean it. Don’t move.”

Once certain they weren’t going to disobey her, Susan poked her head out of the lounge, just in time to make eye contact with Mark down the hall and crook a finger in his direction. 

He frowned, but nevertheless followed the command. 

“What’s going on?” he asked quietly before peeking in the room. 

“Go in there and sit down,” Susan directed. “Now.”

Mark opened his mouth to respond, but one look from Susan cut off any words that may be on their way.

Once he was inside, she stepped further out the door until she spotted Kerry. She flagged her down as well and ushered her into the lounge and into the seat Rachel had vacated at the table.

“What’s going on?” Kerry asked, looking between the two girls and Mark before looking back at Susan.

Susan closed her eyes again and took a deep breath. 

“Rachel told Annie that her Daddy said he was going to ask me out on a date,” Susan explained slowly. “Annie told Rachel that he couldn’t ask me out because I was already dating her mom.”

Both parents exchanged looks with their respective children and then with each other. 

Though both girls still looked angry, their parents’ expressions were very different. Mark had blushed the deep crimson of embarrassment, while Kerry had assumed a bug-eyed look of fear. 

Susan looked from Mark to Kerry and back. She sighed again. 

“Annie’s right. I am dating her mom. And I’ve been doing so for over a year now.”

“But…. But…” Rachel looked back and forth between Susan and her dad, who himself just stared at Susan in disappointed disbelief. “But Mommy told me that girls could only date boys.”

“That’s not true,” Susan said, shaking her head. “Girls can date girls just as much as they can date boys. And the same goes for boys. They can date girls or they can date boys.”

Susan glanced at Kerry and Annie for a second before kneeling down in front of Rachel to look her in the eye. It was clear from Rachel’s expression that her assertion about girls only dating boys was not borne of homophobia, but rather not knowing any differently. And, well, sadness. 

“Now, Rachel. I know you care about me a lot. And I care about you and your dad a lot too.” She glanced at Mark for a brief moment before looking back at Rachel. “And because you care about me, it’s very important that you do not tell anyone what Annie or I told you about me dating Annie’s mom. Okay?”

Rachel’s brow furrowed. 

“But why?” 

Susan was sure the sadness in Rachel’s voice was no longer solely about her dad. 

“Because there’s a lot of people who don’t think that girls should be allowed to date other girls or boys should be allowed to date other boys,” Susan answered sincerely. “But they don’t just think it or say it. Some of them would hurt us over it.”

“They’d _hurt_ you?”

“Yes. Some people would,” Susan said, nodding slowly. “They’d yell at us when we’re out in public. They’d try and get us fired from our jobs. And some would even try to hurt or kill us.”

Rachel’s eyes, already wide, grew to the size of saucers. 

“Just… Just because you’re dating a girl?” she asked in a terrified voice barely more than a whisper. 

“Yes. Which is why we don’t tell people about it.” Susan glanced up at Mark. “Even the people we trust most.”

She and Mark looked at each other for a long moment before Susan looked over at those sitting at the table. 

Kerry still looked downright frightened, but what concerned Susan more was the way Annie stared down at her lap, visibly ashamed at breaking the cardinal rule of her parents’ relationships.

“Annie knows better than to talk about it with other people, but I know she didn’t do it on purpose,” Susan said with a small smile at the girl when she looked up at the sound of her name. “She’s had a hard time lately. One of her dads is sick and she can’t even tell people that he’s her dad. So, I think when you said your dad wanted to ask me out, she got a little angry because she can’t talk about me either.”

“Because you’re her mommy too?” Rachel asked quietly.

Susan smiled sadly. 

“I like to think I am.”

Kerry didn’t respond when Susan looked up at her, but Annie caught Susan’s eye and gave her tiny nods of affirmation.

The door to the lounge opened and Lydia poked her head. She didn’t question what was going on as she scanned those assembled inside, but her brow did rise slightly (indicating speculation would come later when she was back amongst the nurses). 

“I was looking for Dr. Weaver,” she stated before making eye contact with Kerry. “Your ex-husband is at the desk.”

“What?” Kerry asked before quickly remembering why Annie was there in the first place. “Oh, yes. Right.”

She stood up from the table at once and began putting the markers back in the box. Annie followed her lead in standing up and then took the offered marker box back into her bag and followed Kerry out of the lounge.

Susan took this as her cue to stand up. 

“Rachel, how about you get back to your drawing,” Susan suggested. “I’m going to talk to your dad.”

Rachel and Mark both rose from the couch, Rachel to go back to the table and Mark to follow Susan out into a secluded part of the hall for them to talk privately. 

Susan held the door open for Mark and was about to step out into the hall when she heard Rachel say her name. 

“I’m not gonna tell anyone,” Rachel said quietly. “I promise.”

Susan smiled weakly. 

“Thank you.”

Rachel nodded once before turning her attention back to the artwork in front of her (though she now had to complete it without the green marker). 

Mark was already down the hall when Susan turned back. She caught up with him towards the on-call room and pulled him into the corner. 

For a moment, they just stood quietly, waiting for the other person to say something. Finally, Susan inhaled deeply. 

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you,” she apologized in a low voice. “You’re my best friend. I love you and I trust you-”

“But not enough to tell me this?” Mark asked, cutting her off. “Not enough to tell me that you were seeing somebody.”

“Mark, that’s not what it was at all,” Susan said earnestly. “It was…. It was just easier and safer for it not to go beyond the confines of our house. I swear the only people who know about it are Kerry and I, the girls, Kerry’s mom, and Kerry’s ex and his husband. That’s it.”

“So, you trusted me enough to come out to me, but not to tell me that you were in a relationship?” Mark asked, his sincerity edging on ferocity.

“Those are two different things, Mark,” Susan said firmly. “It’s one thing to tell you that I like women and it’s another to tell you that I’m dating one of our female co-workers.”

“A co-worker that you begged me to fire for the first two months she worked here.”

“And, can I just say that I’m really glad you didn’t listen to me,” Susan stated, her hands on her hips.

Mark rolled his eyes and shook his head. 

“Is that why you moved in with her?”

“No,” Susan answered sincerely. “She wouldn’t even talk to me at that point. But we… we eventually worked it out and…”

Susan’s words trailed off, leaving Mark to fill in the rest. 

“When did it start?” he asked

“What?”

“You said it’s been over a year,” Mark clarified. “So, when did it start?” 

Susan exhaled deeply.

“The same day I told you I was bisexual,” she admitted. “It was kind of ironic, actually. I told you all that and didn’t even put two and two together until I was standing in front of her twenty minutes later ready to kiss her.”

Mark let out a small huff that felt it sharpened midair and lodged itself right in Susan’s heart.

“Mark, I wanted to tell you sooner,” she said in a voice teetering on a plea. “I _swear_ I did. Because you’re my best friend. And…. And I wanted to tell you how stupid I how felt when I did that and- and how _relieved_ I was when we discussed it that night and….”

Susan crossed her arms tight across her chest in an effort to physically hold back her emotions. 

“And I’ve wanted to tell you how happy I’ve been. How nice it is to be in love again and-and to have a family that doesn’t _shit_ _on me._ And…. And how I think Mildred has given me more genuine guidance and affection than I think my own mother has my entire life.”

Susan shook her head and took a breath to steel herself.

“You’re my best friend, Mark. My _best friend._ And I can say that I didn’t tell you because Kerry asked me not to tell anyone and that I was worried that it getting out would affect my ability to adopt Suzie. But the truth is… I was scared too. And all I can hope is that you know that you are my best friend and I trust you more than anyone, so if I was too scared to even tell _you…_. Then you know how strong those feelings must have been.” 

Susan waited for a response, but when Mark offered none, she just sighed and walked away. 

He watched her walk away for a long while before an incoming trauma pulled his attention away from the matter. At least until Kerry came around the corner near the trauma room at the same time he was shrugging his way out of a trauma gown.

She stopped suddenly a second before they collided.

“Oh, sorry,” she muttered, taking a step back out of his way. 

“No, after you,” he said, ushering her to go ahead. 

She hesitated for a moment before continuing on down the hall. But she hadn’t taken more than a few steps before she turned back. 

“Mark?”

He turned around, which she took as permission to step forward towards him. 

“Look,” she said in a low voice, “I just wanted to apologize for earlier. For…. For Annie and Rachel. I don’t know what all they said, but in case Annie said anything that hurt Rachel’s feelings, I’m sorry. She and I will…. We’ll definitely be having a chat about this. And….”

Kerry bit her lip for a second before dropping her voice further. 

“Please don’t tell anyone what we discussed,” she said in the smallest voice Mark had ever heard her use. “And please don’t hold anything against Susan. _I_ was the one who asked her not to tell anyone. If you’re mad at anyone, please be mad at me. It’s my fault and-and…. I just ask that you please don’t tell anyone. For-for her sake. I don’t want this hurting her career or-”

Kerry paused as someone walked by. 

“If there’s something - anything - I could do, just say it,” she said at long last. “I just want to make sure that she’s…. I’ll do anything to make sure no one knows. To… to keep her safe. Please.”

Mark stared at her for a long time. But when he finally opened his mouth to reply, the words came out before he could stop them. 

“Break up with her.”

He had regretted the thought before he’d even said it, but he regretted it even more as her mouth fell open and her eyes grew as wide as they’d been earlier in the lounge. Because if the sight of the normally self-assured woman looking so scared wasn’t bad enough, Mark had the feeling that the look in her eye meant she was about to agree to his conditions if he was serious that was what it would take to keep Susan safe.

She didn’t have the chance to agree nor respond at all before Maggie Doyle called out for Kerry to come take a look at her patient. But it didn’t matter her response anyways, as Mark knew regardless that he was going to pay for it later.

Mark sat in his car at the curb in front of the house for fifteen minutes before finally climbing out and making his way towards the front door.

Through the windows on the sides of the door, he could see Susan and Kerry on the couch with Kerry’s mom in between them. Kerry was curled up on the couch with her head in her mother’s lap while Susan just leaned her head on Mildred’s shoulder as the older woman rubbed a hand up and down her arm.

When he knocked, it was Mildred who rose to answer the door. 

She must have recognized him from the day he’d helped move Susan in, because she just looked him over and then raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re Mark, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, nodding. “Is Susan home?”

Mildred knew his ignorance was a bluff given the sight line through the window, but she didn’t comment on it.

“She is,” she said simply. “But whether she’ll talk to you, I can’t say.”

She then shrugged and closed the door behind her as she announced their visitor. Mark unconsciously stepped further away from the door, which happened to be a good thing as Susan stepped out onto the porch, her expression clearly furious even in the dim light from the nearby streetlamp.

“You better choose your words wisely or I’m going to kick your ass off this porch,” she said with clear warning in her voice.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry to you and to her. It was a dumb - it was a _very_ dumb mistake and I shouldn’t have said it. I didn’t mean to. It just slipped out.”

“Why was it even in your head, Mark?” Susan demanded. “Why the hell would you even think something like that?”

Mark closed his eyes. 

“You want the truth?” 

“Yes. All of it.”

Mark inhaled deeply.

“I was angry. At her. Because we’ve been competing for things for months and… and I guess I never thought you might be one of the things I was competing with her over. And when she said that she’d be willing to do anything to keep me from telling people, that anger took over and it slipped out.”

He could see the muscles in Susan’s crossed arms and jaw tense even more. 

“So, I’m just a prize to be won to you, am I?”

“No, of course not,” Mark replied, shaking his head firmly. “That’s not-”

“If that’s not what you meant, then what _did_ you mean?” Susan asked, cutting him off before he could finish the statement. 

He paused to gather his words. 

“I misread some things between us, okay? And it…. It gave me tunnel vision,” he said slowly.

“Tunnel vision,” Susan repeated, narrowing her eyes. 

“Yeah, tunnel vision. I…” Mark let out a sigh. “I misread things and it made me think that I had a chance with you should I get up the nerve to ask you out. And I say it was tunnel vision because…. Because I became convinced that dating you would be a win. The first good thing to happen in a long time.”

Mark ran his hands over his face. 

“But that doesn’t matter. I could stand here all night and try to explain my actions, but the fact is that I was wrong,” he stated sincerely. “I acted like a complete dick to you and Kerry and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it and… and whether we date or not means nothing because you’re my best friend and your friendship is worth more to me than that.”

Susan’s brow rose for a second before she looked taken aback.

“I’m your best friend?”

“Yes. You are.”

“Really? Because what you did earlier certainly didn’t make me _feel_ like you were my best friend,” Susan said, her voice angry but also clearly hurt. “And if you’re _really_ my best friend, then you understand that all the trust I said I had in you earlier is now shot to hell, right? And that you’re going to have to earn it all over again?”

Mark took a long deep breath and then nodded. 

“Yes. I understand that.”

“Good. Then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Mark said as Susan turned for the door. “But I just want to make sure that you know that I would never do that to you or Kerry or anybody. And I hope that counts for something.”

Susan had turned the door handle and was ready to pull it open, but stopped and turned back to look at him head on.

“No, it doesn’t. And you know why? Because I,for one, never doubted that for a second.” Susan took one last long look at him and then shook her head and turned back for the door. “Goodnight, Mark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and happy Sunday to you all. 
> 
> So, there's a lot about this AU that has felt (to me at least) like, even though the premise is the same as the other AU, things are playing out in sort of opposite ways than they did in the other AU. For example, it was Susan, not Kerry, who realized her feelings first. And, in the other AU, Susan's accidental revelation of her and Kerry's relationship to Mark is very calm and subdued. I didn't intend for this one to be _not_ calm, but as I figured out where and when I it would play out, it occurred to me that, if I put it in Season 3, it would be affected by the constant competition that Mark and Kerry are in that season. The part where Mark asks Kerry to break up with Susan was not part of the original thought process, but once it came to mind, it fit too well.
> 
> I love Mark and promise I am not making him out the be the asshole for the purpose of making it clear that he and Susan are not the intended couple. He's just kind of an ass in Season 3. And while a lot of that is due to canon!Susan's departure and his bitterness over unrequited love, I feel that it would still be the same in this AU connected to his competition with Kerry and the fact that Susan and Kerry are such close friends. 
> 
> We're moving into Season 4 from here. Sorry for the speedrun, but as I said before, pretty much all the big stuff of Season 3 was covered in the other AU (and would be very much the same in this one). I'm very, very, very excited for what Season 4 has in store, and not just because of Lizzie.
> 
> Until next time :)


	20. Best Laid Plans

Elizabeth checked her chart and then glanced around the group of ER doctors gathered around the Admit Desk. 

She’d been paged by a Dr. Lewis, but could not for the life of her remember who Dr. Lewis was. 

She was a woman. Of that, Elizabeth was _quite_ sure. And she wasn’t the redhead who had taken over as the temporary Chief of Emergency Services after the ER Chief Morgan(stein?) had a heart attack a few weeks prior. That was Kerry Weaver. But who Dr. Lewis was, Elizabeth could not remember.

Luckily for her, Dr. Lewis remembered who _she_ was.

“Elizabeth!” a voice called out a moment before a young blonde White woman appeared in front of her.

“Dr. Lewis?” Elizabeth asked cautiously.

“Yeah. Susan.”

“Susan. Susan, Susan, Susan,” Elizabeth repeated to try and commit the name to memory. “I promise I’ll learn everyone’s name at some point. There’s just so many.” 

Elizabeth dropped her voice so only Susan could hear her. 

“And, frankly, you should probably consider it a good thing that I don’t know it yet. Because if I did, it would likely not be for a good reason.”

Susan chuckled.

“Please don’t worry about it,” she assured Elizabeth as they started in the direction of the patient with the surgical abdomen Susan had paged her for. “I’m just glad it was you who came down.”

“Me?” Elizabeth asked, frowning. “What for?”

“Well, it’s been a bit of a crapshoot paging Surgery these days,” Susan said with a small shrug. “If we’re lucky, we get you or Peter. If we’re _not..._ we get the other guy.”

“You mean Dr. Romano?”

Susan stopped suddenly and turned on Elizabeth. She held up a finger to her lips and glanced around. 

“Don’t say his name,” Susan warned. “It’s like _Beetlejuice._ If you say his name too often, he’s gonna show up just to harass people.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

“I know Robert has a… a particular way of saying things. But he’s really not that bad.”

Susan gave her a look before turning and starting walking again. 

“I don’t know what they let slide at your old hospital,” Susan remarked, “but that’s not okay around here.”

“Fair enough,” Elizabeth conceded with a shrug. “Though, I’ve heard you have your own headache down here in the form of your ER Chief.”

“Somebody told you that Morgenstern was a headache?” Susan asked in disbelief, her brow furrowing in confusion.

“No, not him. Weaver,” Elizabeth replied. 

“Oh. Well, yeah,” Susan agreed, rolling her eyes. “Just don’t let her hear you call her the ER Chief without the word ‘Acting’ in front of it or else it _will_ go straight to her head. And because you’re new, I’m gonna just warn you now that _I_ have to bear the brunt of Kerry more than anyone else. So, please be considerate if you intend to piss her off.”

“You mean Dr. Greene and the other Attendings don’t pitch in to help?” 

“They do here at work. But they don’t live with her and therefore don’t have to _also_ hear about it at home,” Susan explained. “And, before you say anything, the answer is free childcare.”

Elizabeth considered this for a second and then nodded.

“Alright. Though, you _did_ just confirm the fact that she's a headache.”

“Oh, I’d never deny it. But at least when she tells me off, she doesn’t slip in unsolicited comments about my boobs,” Susan stated (in the full knowledge it wasn’t for a lack of trying on her part.)

“That would certainly be very odd.” As they passed the desk, Elizabeth stiffened slightly. “We should probably be careful about talking too loud. So, she doesn’t happen to hear.”

“Oh, she’s not here,” Susan said, waving her away. “She’s at some ER management seminar today.”

But just as she said it, they passed the open door to an exam room and the sight of red hair slowed Susan to a stop.

“Or at least I thought she was,” she said to Elizabeth before stepping inside the room. “Kerry, I thought you had that thing this morning.”

Kerry, who was seated on a stool next to one of the beds, turned to glance behind her. At the sight of Susan, she heaved a frustrated sigh. 

“Well, I was planning on it,” she said with annoyance clear in her voice. “But as we were leaving the house, we ended up having to take a bit of a detour.”

A redheaded girl who bore a remarkable resemblance to the (Acting) ER Chief poked her head out from behind said (Acting) ER Chief and smiled. 

“It was my fault.”

“Annie,” Susan said with a lot more concern in her voice than Elizabeth would have expected. “What happened?”

“Yeah, Annie?” Kerry asked, turning back to her. “What happened?”

Annie seemed to be fighting the urge to smile while also ardently avoiding Kerry’s gaze. 

“I slipped in the mud and cut my arm on a rock,” she informed Susan slowly.

“And why is Momma not happy about that?” Kerry asked her, raising an eyebrow. 

Annie took a moment to consider her answer.

“Because I got hurt?” she answered with a hopeful smile.

Kerry fought the urge to roll her eyes. 

“And why else?”

Annie took even longer to answer this. And when she did, her shoulders drooped.

“Because she told me not to.”

Kerry looked back up at Susan and Elizabeth, who had joined them in the exam room. 

“I specifically said to go _around_ the mud so that we did not fall.” She looked back at Annie. “And what did you do when I said that?”

Annie gave her most sheepish grin yet. 

“I jumped in the mud.”

“You jumped in the mud. So, we had to go back inside and change clothes and then come here so I could attend to that,” Kerry explained, indicating to a half-sutured cut along Annie’s left forearm. “Carter is cleaning off her crutches as we speak.”

Elizabeth immediately started flipping through her mental catalogue of orthopedic and neurological disorders that would require both mother _and_ daughter to need assistance in ambulation. Beside her, Susan just nodded. 

“Well, I’m glad it’s nothing worse than a few stitches. And I’m glad to know we’re utilizing our interns efficiently.”

“For the record, he offered.”

When Annie nodded in agreement, Susan noticed the curious look she was giving Elizabeth. 

“Oh, right. Introductions.” She motioned from Elizabeth to Annie and back. “Elizabeth, this is Kerry’s daughter Annie. Annie, this is Elizabeth. She just moved here from the other side of the world.”

 _“Really?”_ Annie asked in a voice full of awe. 

Elizabeth chuckled, nodding. 

“Sort of. I’m from London, which is in the UK. Which is all the way on the other side of the ocean.”

Annie cocked her head in question.

“Which ocean?”

“That would be the Atlantic Ocean,” Elizabeth informed her. 

“She’s been studying maps in school,” Susan muttered as an aside to Elizabeth. Then, she looked back at Annie. “Elizabeth is one of our new surgeons.”

“My Daddy is a surgeon,” Annie said happily. “But not here, though. He works at another hospital.”

“Well, I still might meet him at some point. We surgeons are a tight-knit bunch,” Elizabeth informed Annie with a wink, only to remember the chart in her hand. “Speaking of surgery, we should probably get back to your patient, Susan.”

“Yeah, probably,” Susan acknowledged. She looked at the two redheads. “I’ll see you guys when I get home?”

“You’ll see her, but you might not see me. At least, not until later,” Kerry said as she turned back to the sutures on Annie’s arm. “There’s another Synergix presentation late this afternoon. I’m going to try and catch it then.”

Susan gave her a thumbs up and then started for the door.

“Well, it was very nice to meet you, Annie,” Elizabeth said. “Hopefully I won’t see you here too soon, but if I do, I’m sure I’ll remember who you are Because you look _very_ much like your mum.”

Annie beamed at the statement.

“Thank you.”

Elizabeth smiled in reply before joining Susan back in the hall. Annie watched them go before looking back at Kerry, who had resumed the last of the sutures with a small smirk on her face. She glanced up at Annie as she tied off the last one.

“Don’t think you’re not going to get in trouble for this just because you’re cute.”

Annie smiled. 

Kerry snipped the excess thread and then placed a large bandage over the fresh sutures. As she began cleaning up, Carter brought Annie’s now-clean crutches back for her, commenting only that some of the stickers did not make it through the wash and may need to be replaced before he left again. 

“Now, it’s going to hurt to walk for a few days,” Kerry remarked as she tossed her used gloves in the hazardous waste bin. 

Annie gave her a look of confusion. 

“The cut’s on my arm. Why would it hurt to walk?”

“Is that not where the loop goes?” Kerry asked, tapping the same spot on her own forearm to make a point.

Annie frowned and then compared the location of the injury to where the cuff of her crutch fell on her arm. When it seemed Kerry was right, Annie let out a long groan. 

“Does this mean I have to start using just one?” she moaned as Kerry threaded her arm through her own crutch.

“One what? One crutch?” At Annie’s nod, Kerry shook her head. “No, I just meant it’s going to be sore for a few days.”

Her brow furrowed at Annie’s continued look of disappointment. She sat back down on the stool so she could look Annie in the eye.

“Why do you think that’s what I meant?”

“Well, Grandma said that you decided you just wanted to use one when you were seven and now _I’m_ seven, which means I have to start using just one too, right?” Annie asked, desperation and dismay clear in her voice. 

Kerry considered Annie’s words (and her clear concern) for a moment before shaking her head again. 

“No, honey. That was… That was a choice that _I_ made. When _I_ was seven,” she said gently. “If you don’t feel you’re ready to use just one or you want to wait a while longer, you can. That’s up to you.”

Annie was quiet for a long moment. 

“What if I never want to use just one?” she asked in a voice barely more than a whisper. “Would you be mad?”

“Would I be mad? No, of course not, honey. Of course not.” Kerry took a deep breath. “Annie, I know that your hip and your crutches make you like Momma, but that doesn’t mean you have to do things _exactly_ like Momma. Your body is your body, hon, and your crutches are an extension of your body. How and when you use them is completely up to you. Not me, not Grandma - no one but you.

“You might think you want to use two right now,but in a few years, you decide you want to use just one. And maybe you try using just one, but decide you don’t like it and go back to using two… You could even change your mind every day based on how you feel or what you plan to do that day. And maybe eventually you decide that you don’t want to use a crutch and that you’d rather use a cane-”

“Like your fancy one that Grandma took from you without asking?” 

Kerry couldn’t help but smirk at Mildred’s recent revelation that she did not need to _purchase_ a cane to use for herself when there was a perfectly decent (and pretty much unused) cane in Kerry’s closet. Kerry returned home from work one day to find out it had been commandeered, as Annie said, without her permission. (And because it was her mother, there were no consequences for this save for a teachable moment for Annie and Suzie.)

“Yes. Like my fancy one that Grandma took from me without asking,” Kerry replied, nodding. Then, she sighed again. “And… Well, honey, if you _really_ wanted to, you could decide that you don’t want to use any… But I wouldn’t want you to do that. Not until you’re done growing.”

To Kerry’s relief, Annie’s brow furrowed. 

“I wouldn’t want to not use anything,” she said matter-of-factly (and also obviously weirded out that Kerry would even offer such a thing). “Because then I couldn’t go very fast.”

Kerry gave a small shrug. 

“I just want to make sure that you know all your options… And if I’m giving you all your options, then…” Kerry closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she took Annie’s hands in hers. “Annie, you might get to a point where your hip starts hurting you a lot. Where it starts bothering you more and more, and eventually, you might get to a point where it makes it hard to do the things you like to do.

“And if it gets to that point… Or even if you just get to a point where you decide you don’t want to have to use crutches anymore, we could…. We could look into getting surgery to take care of it.”

“But I thought you said that the last time I got surgery it didn’t work?”

“Well, yes,” Kerry conceded. “But that’s just because the surgeon was a buttface.”

“A _buttface?”_ Annie asked in delighted glee. 

“A buttface,” Kerry confirmed, nodding. “But if you wanted or needed surgery again, we would find a surgeon that wasn’t a buttface.”

Annie giggled again at the use of the word, but quickly fell quiet as she considered Kerry’s words. Then, she shrugged. 

“I like using my crutches,” she thought aloud. “And when I use them, then my hip doesn’t really hurt. So, I don’t need surgery.”

“Okay. I just wanted you to know that it is an option too.” She cupped Annie’s cheek in her hand for a moment and then exhaled deeply once more. “I’m probably going to have to get surgery at some point. When my medicine doesn’t work anymore and it gets too hard to take care of you and Suzie. 

“But that won’t be for a while, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

She had added the last line as Annie began to look panicked. It seemed to reassure her enough for her to climb down from the bed, but as they put on their coats and started for the desk, the concern on Annie’s face lingered. 

Annie waited quietly near the desk while Kerry discharged her. 

Across from the desk was a group of people lined up from the waiting area to an exam room down the hall. And as Kerry finished up and waved her to follow her out the Ambulance Bay doors, Annie saw a group of more people waiting outside to be allowed in. 

“Momma, what are those people waiting for?” she asked, glancing back towards the group of people smoking near a trash can as she and Kerry waited to cross the street. “Are they waiting to go to the ER?”

Kerry glanced back for a second before the light changed and she ushered Annie on across the street to where she had parked in one of the hospital’s (very few) accessible parking spots available at street-level.

“No, they’re here for the free clinic.”

“What’s a free clinic?” Annie asked as Kerry opened the door to the back seat for her.

Kerry delayed answering until she had climbed into the driver’s seat, leading Annie to repeat her question.

“Well, a free clinic is somewhere people go if they can’t afford to see a doctor somewhere else,” she explained as she shifted the car into reverse.

“What does that mean?”

Kerry tapped her fingers on the steering wheel for a second, waiting both for the light to change and for her brain to come up with an explanation of the American healthcare system that was age-appropriate for a seven-year-old. 

“Going to the doctor is really expensive,” she said at last, the words coming to her as the light changed to green. “So, in order to do things like go to the doctor, we use what is called ‘health insurance.’ And you get health insurance by paying a health insurance company some money every month, and in return, when you need to do things like get stitches or go fill medicine, they help pay the cost.”

“Do we have health insurance?”

“Yes, we do. I get it through my job, which means I pay a part of my paycheck to the health insurance company. But we’re lucky, because not only does my job offer health insurance, but I can afford to pay for it. Some people have jobs that offer health insurance, but they can’t afford to pay the premiums. But most people’s jobs don’t offer it and even if they did, it would cost too much. 

“And for some people that are healthy and have money, they don’t care about having health insurance. They can afford to pay their own money to see a doctor when they need to. But most people who don’t have insurance can’t do that. If they get sick, they might have to choose between going to the doctor or buying their family food for the week.”

When Annie didn’t immediately respond, Kerry glanced at her in the rearview mirror. 

She was staring out the window, deep in thought. Just as Kerry imagined the gears turning in her little head, Annie looked up at her, a deeply troubled look etched on her face.

“If they go to the doctor, then they can’t buy food?”

“Sometimes. Or sometimes they have to choose between seeing a doctor and fixing their car or paying their bills or paying their mortgage to keep their house,” Kerry explained. “And if you can’t afford to buy food, you can go to a food pantry to get some. A free clinic is kind of similar. It’s a place you go if you can’t go somewhere else.”

Annie thought back to the group of people waiting to be seen at the clinic.

“Is the clinic going to see all the people that were waiting there?” she wondered aloud.

“Now, that I don’t know. The hard part about a free clinic is that it’s not really free. Since the patients don’t pay, the clinic doesn’t have money to hire a doctor. They rely on volunteers who help out. But they don’t have many volunteers, so they probably won’t get to see everybody today.”

“Do you help out?” Annie asked, a tinge of hopefulness in her voice. 

“I don’t have time to,” Kerry replied, shaking her head. “Do you remember how I told you that the doctor in charge of the ER got sick? And how I’m helping to do his job while he takes time off to get better?”

Annie nodded, vaguely recalling being told that a few weeks prior as an explanation as to why Kerry had come home with an armful of large binders. 

(She had gone to bed before Mildred scolded Kerry for seeming to be more excited about her temporary promotion than she was about David Morgenstern’s health.)

“What happens if they don’t get to see the doctor?”

“They just have to hope whatever it is goes away,” Kerry explained with a grimace. “And sometimes it does. But most of the time it doesn’t and they end up getting sicker.

“And when they get sicker, that’s when they tend to come see us in the ER. Sometimes, it’s because they’re now so sick that it’s an emergency, but other times it’s because they know that the ER has a rule that they help people first and ask questions later. We’ll see them, regardless of whether they can pay for it or not. 

“The hard part with that is that, even though we help everybody, it’s not free there either. They might not have to pay the bill before they leave like you do at a restaurant, but they’re going to get one later in the mail. And that’s a bigger problem because seeing a doctor in the ER is a lot more expensive than seeing one in an office.”

“But…” Annie paused for a second, her brow furrowing even deeper than it had already. “But you said they don’t even have enough money to buy food. How are they gonna pay for that?”

Kerry caught Annie’s eye in the mirror and gave her a disheartened look.

“Well, we start by seeing if they can pay any part of it… but most of the time they can’t. So, we do what’s called a ‘write-off’ and we just pretend that it never happened. But that only works for the patient, not the hospital. The hospital still has to pay for it. Which is why Momma has a lot of work to do to try and fix the ER budget. Because over the last year, we’ve helped a lot of people who couldn’t pay for it.”

Kerry turned down the street to the elementary school as silence fell again. But this time, Annie didn’t look up when Kerry tried to make eye contact with her in the mirror. 

Figuring this was the end of the conversation, Kerry pulled into the lot and pulled around the bus turnaround until she could pull off into one of the spots closest to the door (as she only really used her parking placard on her bad days or when she was with Annie). 

She climbed out of the car and crossed around to the passenger’s side to pull out her purse and crutch. But right as she turned to open the back door for Annie, she found Annie already standing there looking up at her with a very determined look on her face. 

“Momma, you have to help them in the clinic.”

“Honey, I don’t have time,” Kerry said, closing the door and starting for the school. “And what time I _do_ have I want to spend with you. And with Suzie and Susan and Grandma.”

“But you said that they don’t have enough people to help them!” Annie said sincerely as she followed her mother towards the school. “And if they don’t see a doctor there, then they have to pay to see a doctor and that means that they can’t buy food!”

Kerry's heart couldn’t help but swell with pride at Annie’s worry about the clinic patients. Though it didn’t necessarily mean her answer changed, she was relieved by the assurance that the second-grader empathized with those in need and wanted to do something to help them. 

(Her dad was surely looking down with pride in his heart too.)

“I’m glad that you want to help them see a doctor, Annie. But I just don’t have the time to.”

Kerry pressed the button for the automatic door and led them into the school. There was a short line formed at the secretary’s desk, which led her to hang back. 

“But you said that if they get sicker, then the hospital has to pay for it,” Annie continued, clearly undeterred by Kerry’s refusal so far. “If you help them not get sicker, then the hospital won’t have to pay for it _and_ they can still buy food!” 

Kerry opened her mouth to stop Annie from continuing to plead, but almost immediately closed it. 

The more advanced the disease state, the higher the cost of the patient. Investing in preventative care _could_ potentially allow for intervention before disease states progressed further and cost increased. Plus, if they decreased non-emergent visits, they could reduce the amount of Disproportionate Share Funds spent on uncompensated care. And those savings, combined with the administrative adjustments she’d proposed to Anspaugh...

Kerry’s silence and the contemplative look that had fallen over her features made Annie grin broadly. 

“Does the look on your face mean I’m right?”

Susan had barely stepped inside the door before the scene at the kitchen table caused her great concern. 

Nearly every inch of it was covered with papers, open books, or complicated-looking spreadsheets. Kerry sat in the middle seat of one side, furiously scribbling in a notebook. Then, without warning, she set the pen down and then started typing furiously on an open laptop next to her.

“What’s going on?” Susan asked, almost forgetting to take off her shoes before she stepped forward to peer over Kerry’s shoulder. 

“Don’t expect an answer from her, dear,” Mildred warned from her place on the couch. “She’s too far gone.”

Susan cautiously picked up one of the documents closest to her. When no hand flew up to smack it away from her, she read the title across the top. 

_“‘The County General Free Clinic for the Uninsured of Cook County.’”_ Susan flipped through it, her brow rising. “Did you write a business plan for an entire free clinic in one day?”

“No, it’s the plan that Carol brought me a few weeks ago,” Kerry replied without looking up. “I made a copy of it so that I could make some… adjustments. Increase the scale, budget in supplies, schedule volunteers.”

“I thought you were off today to get the ER budget in order...” Susan said slowly. “I mean, what about that management thing you missed this morning? Weren’t you going to try to catch the later presentation?”

Kerry shook her head as she switched from the laptop back to the binder. 

“We don’t need them, because I’ve had an idea.”

 _“Annie_ had an idea,” Mildred commented loudly. 

Kerry rolled her eyes. 

“Annie got mad at me, which gave me an idea,” Kerry corrected herself. 

Susan frowned as she read (or at least _tried_ to read) the notes Kerry had scribbled all over the business plan.

“To quit and run Carol’s free clinic instead?”

 _“No,”_ Kerry replied, shaking her head. “The clinic is the answer I’ve been looking for.”

She slapped both hands down on the table in triumph, making Susan jump. 

“If we’re able to divert non-emergent patients from the ER to the clinic, we could save thousands, if not _hundreds_ of thousands of dollars in avoidable expenses,” Kerry explained as an eager smile crept over her face. “Patients wouldn’t accrue medical debt that they may or may not later be responsible for and we are able to prioritize available funding for the true emergencies.

“And we may even be able to hang a flyer for it in the ER waiting area. Which wouldn’t be an EMTALA violation because we’re not _making_ them go to the clinic instead of being seen by us. We would just be offering them a… a cost-effective alternative.”

“Have… Have you discussed this with Carol at all?” Susan asked hesitantly.

She was sure the answer was going to be ‘no,’ and instead found herself pleasantly surprised (and relieved) when Kerry nodded. 

“I stopped back by the ER after dropping Annie off to bounce some ideas off of her. She thought they sounded good, so I’m putting some stuff together to follow-up on with her in a few days.” Then, Kerry let out a sigh. “Unfortunately, now I’m stuck.”

Against what she was sure was her better judgement, Susan asked, “On what?”

“On volunteers.” Kerry picked up a small black address book from where it sat on the other side of the table. “I bet I could call every physician I know and ask them to help out and get one, _maybe_ two. And likely for only a few hours once a month. Which is admittedly better than nothing, but not _nearly_ enough to staff the clinic enough so that they can see all those in need.”

Susan pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. 

“Well, the clinic would only be handling primary care stuff, right? No ACLS or anything?”

“Yes. That’s why proximity to the ER is important. That way we could send them over if we were to catch anything that needed emergency attention.”

“Well, maybe you could send Carter’s med student over to help out,” Susan said with a small shrug. “He’s a mud-phud and hasn’t done anything _remotely_ clinical in years.”

“What, pray tell, is a ‘mud-phud?’” Mildred asked from the living room.

“MD-PhD. Mud-phud,” Susan answered with a grin in Mildred’s direction. “Most of the ones I’ve met are oncologists, immunologists… You know, people who do a lot of research while also seeing patients.”

Mildred nodded for a moment before turning back to her book. Susan turned back to Kerry just in time for the latter to kiss her squarely on the lips.

“You’re a genius,” Kerry remarked the moment she pulled away. 

“Well… thanks,” Susan said slowly. “But you should know that I was kidding. Please don’t let Carter’s med student close to any patients.”

“No, no. Definitely not him,” Kerry agreed. “But _that’s_ the answer: Med students. We get the Office of Experiential Education involved to get M1s and M2s involved before they start their rotations during their third year.”

Kerry kissed Susan once more before flipping to a fresh page of the notebook and beginning to write. 

Susan took the opportunity to look closer at all that was laid out on the table. Even reading just the pages directly in front of her, she could make out headings like _HIPAA Compliance in a Free Clinic Setting, Clinical Criteria for Referral to Emergency Department,_ and _Prescription Assistance Resources in Cook County._

“Where did you find all of this stuff?”

“Some of it I had in my files, some I found at the med school library, and some I put together myself,” Kerry answered as she began piling papers together. 

“In one day?” 

At the disbelief in Susan’s voice, Kerry looked up and was surprised to find on the other woman’s face a mix between uneasiness and fear.

“Yes… Why?”

“Just that you’ve gotten a lot done,” Susan said, looking over the things on the table.

“...And?” Kerry asked, narrowing her eyes.

“And, well, it’s just that your tenacity is just a little… frightening,” Susan answered candidly. “Clearly positive, but frightening.”

“Oh,” Kerry said, relaxing. Then, she shrugged. “You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

“Who was?” 

Without looking up, Kerry pointed towards the living room.

“And I said it with _pride,”_ Mildred stated sincerely. “And knowing full well who taught her how to do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've considered creating an Incorrect ER Quotes tumblr for a while, and one of the first ones that comes to my mind for Kerry is from _Parks and Rec_ when Sen. John McCain asks Leslie Knope, "Has anyone ever told you that your tenacity can be a bit intimidating?" to which Leslie replies, "Yes, every day of my life since the 4th grade." And you know what? 'Round these parts, we stan very ambitious women who are very good at what they do and whose partners are deeply in love with them but also are admittedly a little scared of their work ethic. (I admit to include both Amy Santiago and myself amongst these women. My fiance confirms.)
> 
> As I mentioned several chapters ago, some things, like using the clinic to save the ER money, was going to come up again like it did in the other AU. This example in particular is because this is my area of professional expertise. Of course, it meant that I had to figure out a different approach, and I just couldn't get "kid logic says if you do x, then y will happen" out of my head. So, not only do we get some Lizzie and some more mother-daughter conversations about disability, but we have more healthcare administration! I'm sorry. I just love it. And also it pisses me off so much that this conversation takes place in 1997, but would only be slightly different if it happened today.
> 
> We're into Season 4! And we're gonna just keep chugging along from here. 
> 
> Hope you guys are doing well and enjoying yourselves! Until next time.


	21. The County General Free Clinic for the Uninsured of Cook County

It was soon apparent to all ER staff that there were more people in need of free clinic services than there were words in its overly long (but highly descriptive) name. But before it could get _too_ out of control, Gamma came through. 

The same day of Kerry’s epiphany regarding utilizing the free clinic as a way to save the hospital money, Carol met with Millicent Carter regarding an initial grant to get the clinic off the ground. She obliged with a check for $75,000 and a promise of more down the line if Carol agreed to report back how, when, and why the money was spent and could demonstrate the effect of services. 

Luckily for her, her agreement to partner the clinic and the ER meant she didn’t have to worry about this for long, as Kerry absorbed it into the rest of her records. And when The Carter Family Foundation phone a month later asking for an update on the clinic, Carol was able to give them a detailed report on what services had been provided as well as an estimated value of services if they’d been provided in the ER instead.

The detailed report and meticulous record keeping led to another check, this time for the double the previous amount, right before Christmas. It was just in time too, for if they didn’t close the clinic for the week in between Christmas and New Year to move everything into a bigger space across the street, they’d have split at the seams.

It was the new building that Mildred led Annie and Suzie towards on a chilly afternoon in January. Kerry had informed her it was located next to the diner across the street from the hospital, and without even checking the address, Mildred knew which one it was. 

In the front window hung a banner printed with the (full) name of the clinic as well as several papers taped up advertising their services as well as services at various other agencies in surrounding areas. 

Even more flyers were pinned to the walls of the waiting area just inside the door. They fluttered in the wind as Mildred ushered the girls inside and in the direction of a young Latino man sitting at a desk between the waiting area and the exam rooms beyond. 

“Are you here for the clinic?” he asked as they approached the desk. 

“No, actually. I’m here to see one of the doctors.”

“Okay, then,” the young man replied. “I’m just going to have you fill out these forms while you wait-”

Before Mildred could clarify that she was here to visit in a non-medicine-related way, Kerry spotted them from down the hallway. 

“It’s alright, Jose. They’re with me,” she called out. 

Mildred smiled and nudged the girls forward towards Kerry, who was waving them over. But when they reached her, her expression was not one of pleasant surprise, but rather concern.

“What’s going on? Is something wrong?” she asked Mildred before immediately looking down at Annie, her brow knitting in frustration. “What did you do?”

“Why do you think I did something?” Annie whined. 

“I’m sorry.” Kerry gave Suzie the same look. “What did _you_ do?”

Given Suzie’s suspicious smile, her reply of “Nothing,” would have garnered further inquiry from Kerry had Mildred not raised a hand at her. 

“Will you _relax?”_ Mildred snapped. “The girls did nothing wrong. It was _my_ idea to come.”

Kerry blinked. 

“It was _your_ idea?” At Mildred’s responding nod, Kerry’s expression grew even more confused. “Mom, if you need to see a doctor, you don’t need to come here. You’ve got Medicare. We can-”

“I’m not here to see a doctor,” Mildred said, cutting her off. “I came to watch you work.”

Kerry’s expression now looked so deeply bewildered it was a wonder she didn’t automatically assume she was on _Candid Camera._

“You want to watch me… work?” 

“Yes,” Mildred replied, nodding. “It occurred to me recently that I’ve been singing your professional praises for several years, but I’ve never actually seen you work before.”

“I was under the impression you preferred it that way…” Kerry said slowly. 

Mildred acknowledged the statement with a shrug. 

“For the most part, I have. But I figure I should see it at least once,” she remarked. “And I figured this was probably a better place to do it than in the ER. So I don’t have to see you sewing up hearts or cleaning up brains or whatever it is you do over there.”

Mildred let out a visible shudder before taking a steadying breath and straightening up. 

“And besides… This?” Mildred cast a long look around the clinic. “I think this may be the best medicine you’ve practiced yet.”

Mildred continued to observe the scene for a moment, taking in the faces and feelings of those serving and those being served, before looking back to Kerry with a look of quiet pride on her face. She was pleased to find Kerry humbled by the comment and the pink that had risen in her cheeks.

“Your dad would be so proud of you,” Mildred said in a quiet but sincere voice. “I know I am.”

Kerry mouthed, “Thank you,” earning her an even prouder smile from Mildred. 

To distract from how much pinker her cheeks surely must have gotten from the compliment, Kerry too cast a glance around.

Then, she sighed.

“There’s not many places for you to sit and watch... not that you really should for privacy reasons,” she explained. “But you’re welcome to sit and talk to the patients out in the waiting area. Or there’s a table and a few chairs for volunteers in the back.”

“Will I be able to see you?” Mildred asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Kerry considered the question for a moment, and then shrugged. 

“A bit. I’m mostly walking around anyway.” She motioned to the exam areas off to their right which were separated by curtains. “The medical students get in pairs to work the patients up. I then come in once they’re ready and look over their orders and the patient’s vitals before they proceed further… Which is pretty much the same thing as what I do in the ER.”

“But there’s no chance of cleaning up brains.”

“No. No chance of that,” Kerry confirmed, shaking her head. “At least not from the patients. The med students… I can’t say.”

She and Mildred shared a small chuckle.

“I think the volunteer area will do just fine.”

Kerry nodded and led them further into the clinic and around the corner towards a table and a counter with a microwave and sink. Opposite the table were more curtains, hung from the ceiling and divided by a wall in between.

She motioned Mildred to take a seat at the table, but as the girls made to follow her, she held them back. 

“Grandma’s going to sit and watch, but you two I’m putting to work,” she said, pointing at them both in turn.

Annie, who had been pouting (and trying to get Suzie to pout along with her) at their mother’s unfair assumption that they were there because they’d been causing trouble, immediately ceased pouting and lit up. 

“Okay! What are we gonna do?”

“We just got some big boxes of donated supplies,” Kerry said, pointing to where a few med students were opening up large cardboard boxes nearby. “I want you to help sort through them.”

Annie nodded excitedly, which led Suzie to do the same. (Because if her sister was excited about it, then, gosh darn it, she was too.)

Mildred shrugged out of her coat while Kerry helped the girls out of theirs. As she sat down, Kerry led the girls over to the students and introduced them. 

For a moment, Mildred just watched them, smiling softly at the way the medical students shook both kids’ hands and then eagerly showed them how to help. (She then chuckled to herself as she wondered if their eagerness was genuine or out of fear about what Dr. Weaver might do if they _weren’t_ eager.)

“Is anyone sitting here?” 

Mildred looked up to see a young White woman with long blonde hair pointing at the open seat opposite her at the table. 

“Only you, my dear,” she replied with a smile. 

“Thank you.”

The woman slid her backpack off and hung it on the chair before sitting down. Under her winter coat hid a white coat emblazoned with a university crest over the pocket. But unlike Kerry’s, or really _any_ of the lab coats Mildred had seen doctors wear, it only reached the woman’s waist. 

“Are you one of the volunteers?” she asked after hanging her coat up in the nearby coat closet.

“Oh, no, no,” Mildred replied, shaking her head. “I’m here to watch my daughter work. And to ensure that my grandchildren don’t run amok.”

When the young woman’s brow furrowed, Mildred smiled slightly and pointed to where Annie and Suzie were waiting for one of the students to open a box of supplies for them to dig through. 

The young woman followed her line of sight. Her worried expression began to relax and a small smile of her own began to grow on her face. 

“How old are they?”

“Seven and two-and-a-half.”

The young woman’s smile grew wider and then curious in nature.

“Why is the younger one holding onto the older one’s shirt like that?”

She nodded towards Suzie, who stood just slightly behind Annie. In one hand, she held her stuffed bunny while the other firmly gripped the bottom of Annie’s sweater.

“Because she wants to hold her sister’s hand, but she can’t, so, instead she holds onto her shirt,” Mildred explained simply. “Whether her sister is okay with that depends on the day. But, for the most part, it’s a reasonable alternative.”

The young woman chuckled at the sincerity in Mildred’s tone.

“You said you’re here to watch your daughter work?” she asked, glancing around. “Is _she_ one of the volunteers?”

“Mm-hmm.” Mildred glanced at the young woman out of the side of her eye. “Have you met Dr. Weaver by chance?”

Mildred nearly snorted when the young woman immediately stiffened in her chair.

“Um, yes. I have.” When the young woman noticed Mildred smirking at her for her (unconscious) reaction to the questions, she felt her cheeks burn. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… It’s just that she’s …”

“Don’t apologize, dear,” Mildred said in a reassuring tone. “It may surprise you to know this, but, as her mother, I _have,_ in fact, met her before.”

The reassurance and the wink that accompanied it made the young woman chuckle (and release the breath she’d been unintentionally holding).

“She’s a really good doctor,” the young woman remarked. “She just… expects a lot. From us med students, I mean.”

Mildred glanced sideways once more. 

“Should she not?”

“Oh, no. That’s not what I meant,” the young woman replied quickly, shaking her head. “Just that… It just feels real when she’s in charge. Like she rarely refers to use as ‘students.’ We’re ‘student _doctors.’_ And… I don’t know. I guess since we’re not in clinical rotations yet, we haven’t really been exposed to-”

“To somebody relying on you as a doctor?” Mildred said, finishing the thought.

The young woman considered this for a moment and then nodded.

“It’s just… It’s a lot of responsibility,” she thought aloud. “Knowing that these are real people and that what you say and do directly affects their health. It’s… intimidating.”

“As I expect it should be,” Mildred mused. 

The young woman’s eyes grew wide with fear. 

“You think I _should_ be intimidated?” she asked in a worried voice. 

“Well, yes. Because you’re right. These are real people you’re working with. Real people with real lives and families and jobs,” Mildred replied. “That _is_ a lot of responsibility. And I’d imagine feeling intimidated by it is a good thing. I’d imagine it means you _understand_ that it’s a lor of responsibility.

“What you have to figure out is whether you’re going to recognize the responsibility and move forward or let the intimidation freeze you in place.”

Off to their right, Kerry rounded the corner with a pair of student doctors. The young woman looked at her for a long moment and then looked back to Mildred, frowning.

“Did Dr. Weaver ever feel intimidated when she first started working with patients?”

Mildred paused and then shook her head.

“As I recall, she was chomping at the bit to apply what she’d learned. But I also know that she’s often a lot more worried than she lets on. Her… _friend_ Michael that was in med school with her at the same time, well… He _definitely_ felt that responsibility. And it nearly froze him.”

“How did it turn out?” the young woman asked, her brow furrowing.

“He must have gotten over it because he’s been a surgeon now for, oh… Ten years now?”

The young woman’s brow rose, impressed. Then, a thought occurred to her and she peered sideways at Mildred. 

“Were you a doctor too?” she asked in a tone of dawning understanding.

But the dawning understanding was immediately quashed as Mildred quickly shook her head.

“Oh, no,” she said seriously. “I don’t do medicine. Glad there are people that are, but I don’t.”

“What do you mean you ‘don’t do medicine?’” 

Mildred paused to gather her thoughts into something that wouldn’t offend the doctor-in-training.

“I had… Let’s just say that I had a bad experience as a young woman,” she explained slowly. “It sort of… turned me off.”

“But you still go get check-ups, right?” the young woman asked, her tone and expression quickly growing concerned as she turned towards Midlred at the table. “Because at your age, you should be monitoring things like your blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol…”

Before Mildred had a chance to reply (much less make a comment about what age this young lady thought she was), the young woman’s words grew even more rapid and anxious.

“I could check them for you right now if you wanted,” she offered. “Well, I can’t do a lipid panel because that requires fasting overnight. But I could check your blood sugar and your blood pressure at least.”

Mildred observed the young woman over the rim of her glasses, which seemed to bring her back down to earth. 

She smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry. I got carried away.”

“It’s alright, dear. I’m used to it,” Mildred said, her chuckling growing as she caught sight of (short) red hair coming around the corner. “Sometimes, I wonder if my daughter’s name was a self-fulfilling prophecy or we chose it because God knew she was just going to be like that.”

Mildred made eye contact with Kerry and then narrowed her eyes. This got her a look of confusion and a mouthed, _“What?”_ followed by a quick glance towards the girls. 

When they proved to be doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, Kerry looked back at Mildred and raised her eyebrows in question. But Mildred just smiled and shook her head, leading Kerry to roll her eyes and return her attention to the chart in her hand.

The young woman watched the exchange and then glanced at Mildred. She smiled at the look of quiet pride on Mildred’s face as she looked from Kerry to the girls, who were having a wonderful time throwing the sorted supplies into appropriately labeled boxes. 

“You should get a check-up,” she said quietly. “If not for you, then for Dr. Weaver and for your grandchildren. So you can make sure you have the most time with them that you can.”

For a long moment, Mildred said nothing and just watched the girls work/play. 

Suzie now had her bunny on her head and was trying to see if she could toss the supplies into the box without the bunny falling off. As Mildred watched, Annie tossed one into the box and then instructed Suzie where to release so hers would go in too. And when it did, the pair of them and the med students cheered. 

“I’m not afraid of what’s coming,” Mildred remarked in a low voice. “And I don’t intend to worry myself over what time I have left. Only how much I have.”

She inhaled deeply and then glanced over at the young woman. 

“I take it you’re not comfortable talking about death?” Mildred asked, raising an eyebrow. 

The young woman bit her lip.

“Not really.”

“Well, you should _get_ comfortable with it. Especially if you want to be a doctor.”

“Yeah, I know,” the young woman replied, nodding. “I tried to get comfortable with it a few years ago when my grandpa died, but… but it didn’t really work.”

“You know what they never tell you about death?” When the young woman shook her head, Mildred smirked and said, “Life’s full of it.”

The women, old and young, shared a small smile. But in doing so, they missed the distinct clicking sound growing louder as it approached them.

“Ms. Knight, would you please go take over for Mr. Contreras at the front desk before he pees himself?” Kerry asked firmly.

The young woman jolted in her chair at the question. Frantically, she looked down at her watch and then bolted out of her chair. 

“Oh my gosh. I didn’t realize it was after six. I’m so sorry.”

“Relax, dear,” Mildred instructed the young woman before looking pointedly at Kerry. “It was _my_ fault that she’s late. Don’t go getting her in trouble.”

“I understand that it was your fault,” Kerry said to her mother before looking at the young woman. “But I’m not kidding when I say he’s been begging me to go to the bathroom for the last ten minutes.”

The young woman nodded quickly. She made to start for the desk, but before she took a step forward, she turned back.

“It was very nice talking with you, ma’am.”

“And it was very nice talking with you...” Mildred frowned slightly. “What did you say your name was?”

“I… don’t think I did. But I’m Lucy. Lucy Knight,” Lucy replied. “And you are?”

“Mildred Weaver.” Mildred held out a hand for Lucy to shake. “Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Ms.Knight.”

Lucy smiled broadly only to catch Kerry’s eye and quickly scurry away to start her clinic shift. 

Once she was around the corner and out of sight, Kerry turned back towards her mother and gave her a look of exasperation.

“I thought the girls might be a distraction, but I didn’t think _you_ would be.”

“And that was an oversight on your part,” Mildred replied simply. 

Kerry rolled her eyes and turned to go back to work. But just as she did, she felt a quick jab to the back of one of her legs and spun back around to see Mildred pretending to look innocent. 

But the pretense only lasted a second before Mildred chuckled and tapped her ‘borrowed’ cane she’d on the ground a few times. 

“If I knew this would be as good at correcting you as it would be for taking stress off my knees, I’d have started using one a long time ago.”

Kerry rolled her eyes again, but couldn’t help but smirk. 

“Just don’t let Annie see you doing that,” she said quietly. “For Suzie’s sake.”

Mildred nodded sincerely. Kerry, reassured, turned back towards the curtains. 

She glanced back once at Mildred and paused as her mother mouthed, _“I love you”_ at her from across the room. Kerry looked taken aback for the briefest of seconds before replying.

_“I love you, too.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing about playing around with things I did in the other AU is that, while most of the similar events are big things and thus need figured out, the little ones do too. And I figured if I was going to play with the clinic idea, I needed an early introduction of Lucy too. And it just felt right for her to get a Wise Old Woman conversation with Mildred, so here you go. 
> 
> It occurred to me thatthis story does not have nearly the emphasis on Susan and Kerry's relationship as the other one did. I chalk that up to the fact that the predominant theme of this one is motherhood, and having Mildred in a pivotal role reduces the romance/ relationship part some. But more is coming, I promise! I'm especially excited for the next chapter because it deals with one of my all-time favorite _ER_ episodes: "Exodus." I know I've written a chapter both in ["uc"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901180/chapters/46707901#workskin) and in [A Forest of Trees](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216501/chapters/54669871), but I've got some exciting ideas in store to keep it interesting :)
> 
> Hope you're doing well. Until next time!


	22. Exodos

Annie was patting down the snow on the base of her snowman just as something cold hit her on the back of her knee. 

She looked down at it and, upon seeing the remnants of something snowy, immediately looked up at Suzie a few feet behind her.

“Did you throw a snowball at me?” 

Suzie shook her head once in both directions. Annie narrowed her eyes at her for a long moment before slowly turning back to her snowman.

Almost immediately, another snowball hit her, this time right between the shoulders blades. 

She spun around to glare at her sister. 

“Suzie, stop it!” 

“Didn’t do it,” Suzie replied, turning her nose up at Annie. 

“You’re the only one standing there. You’re the only one who _could_ have done it.”

Suzie thought for a second.Then, she crossed her arms in toddler triumph. 

“Grandma did it.”

“Grandma wouldn’t throw a snowball at me, Suzie,” Annie said with a sneer. _“You_ would.”

Suzie shook her head again. 

“Didn’t do it.”

Annie stuck her tongue out at Suzie, who returned the gesture.

After a second of squaring off, Annie turned back to her snowman. But she made a point to only turn halfway so she could watch out of the corner of her eye. And, just as she suspected, another snowball flew in her direction. 

Digging one of her crutches in for support, Annie raised the other one to chest height as she spun around again. And with a satisfying _crunch_ and a spattering of flying snow, the snowball exploded midair.

Both girls lit up with glee. 

“Again! Again! Again!” Suzie cheered, jumping up and down. 

This time, Annie didn’t turn around, but rather planted her feet where she stood. Suzie threw another snowball, which Annie sliced in half her other crutch. 

“Now, ladies, I hate to break up your fun...” Mildred looked at Annie over the rim of her glasses from her seat on a (frost-covered) lawnchair nearby. “...But I don’t believe your mother would approve.”

Annie considered the statement for a moment.

“I think _Mommy_ would be okay with it…” she replied slowly. 

“And I think you know that _Momma_ would not be,” Mildred finished. 

“Well…” Annie dropped her voice to a whisper. “Momma doesn’t have to know.”

“And yet, somehow, she always does,” Mildred mused.

At the sight of Annie and Suzie’s disappointed pouts, Mildred chuckled. She rose from her chair with a groan, leaning heavily on her cane until her joints appropriately snapped and popped enough for her to straighten up fully. 

“Come on. It’s just about time for dinner,” she said, waving them towards the door. “ And then maybe later I’ll make us some hot chocolate before bed.”

The girls were still sulking but nevertheless gathered up the tools and toys they’d been using for their snow construction projects and put them in the box near the stairs. 

_BOOOOOM._

The sound rang through the neighborhood like a crack of doom. They could even feel it reverberate through the ground. 

“What was _that?”_ Annie asked, turning her head in every direction to find the source of the sound. 

“Firework?” Suzie asked, following Annie’s lead in trying to see past houses and trees. 

“No, it couldn’t be a firework. It’s February,” Annie said as she scanned the horizon.

She took a few steps to her left and then pointed off into the distance.

“There! That must be it!”

Suzie ran over to where she was to follow Annie’s line of sight. And, sure enough, there in the distance, black billowing clouds rose from somewhere well beyond the El tracks down the street. 

“Fire?” Suzie asked, thinking of the cartoons on fire safety that featured similar billowing clouds. 

“Maybe. But it sounded more like something exploded. What do you think, Grandma?” Annie glanced back at Mildred. “... Grandma?”

Mildred had made it partway up the stairs before the sound had caught her off guard. She gripped the handrail tight with one hand and clutched at her chest with the other. On her face was a look of immense pain.

“Grandma, are you okay?” Annie asked, her voice full of alarm as she rushed to Mildred’s side. “Grandma?”

It took a second, but Mildred eventually took a deep breath and then waved Annie away.

“Yes, dear. I’m alright,” she replied, though she was still grimacing in pain. “Come on. Let’s see if it’s on the news.”

She took another second, but then pulled open the door to Kerry’s bedroom and led them inside. 

They kicked off their snow boots and set them on a towel near the door before starting for the living room to hang up their coats on the hooks near the front door. Mildred shedded her coat and then handed it to Annie to hang up before crossing to the far couch and taking a seat. 

She picked up the remote from where it sat on an end table and clicked the television on. But she only just managed to get to ABC 7 before pain caused her to clutch at her chest once more. 

“Grandma, are you _sure_ you’re okay?” Annie asked nervously as she and Suzie returned to the living room. “Because you don’t look that good.”

“Oh, I’m fine, dear.” Mildred exhaled deeply, which caused another tinge of pain. “It’ll go away any second. It’s happened before.”

“But usually it already goes away by now… Doesn’t it?”

Mildred could say whatever she wanted to, but it didn’t change the fact that Annie was right. It usually _was_ gone by now, not increasing in strength and duration.

“Annie, honey?” Mildred said as cold sweat began to collect on her forehead.

“Yeah?” Annie asked, stepping closer to Mildred.

“I need you to call 9-1-1 for me,” Mildred instructed quietly. “And call your mom.”

Annie’s eyes grew wide at the implications of what calling 9-1-1 meant, but, nevertheless, she nodded quickly and ran for the cordless phone in the kitchen.

Suzie looked between her and Mildred, a look of concern on her little face. Not knowing what to do - but clearly understanding that something was wrong with Mildred - she started looking around on the floor.

Mildred watched her for a moment, confused, until she (and Suzie) spotted what Suzie was looking for. Then, Suzie climbed up onto the couch next to her and handed her her stuffed bunny. 

Jerry spotted the Acting ER Chief looking over some paperwork and started his way to her. 

“A message from Dr. Anspaugh,” he announced, putting a Post-It down on the counter in front of her. “He’s giving a lecture in Virgin Gorda. That’s the phone number to the hotel.”

Kerry nodded slightly and then noticed the clipboard in his hand. 

“Hey, is that Mr. Arteburn’s chart?”

“Yeah, yeah. Actually, check this out.” Jerry flipped a few pages on the chart and then handed it off to her. “Blue Cross. Not the HMO. Not the PPO. Traditional indemnity plan… _gold.”_

“Jerry, we treat everyone the same,” Kerry said firmly as she looked over the chart.

“I’m just thinking of the budget deficit,” Jerry offered.

Kerry rolled her eyes and started for Trauma Two. 

Thanks to the clinic, they’d started getting back on financial track sooner than anticipated. (But that didn’t stop her from wanting to state how far behind they still were, thanks to an idiot desk clerk and a rocket launcher.)

“Mr. Arteburn, I have some preliminary results that I’d like to-” she began as she stepped up next to the man on the gurney.

“Look, if there’s any cause for concern,” he said, cutting her off, “I’d really rather go see my own doctor.”

“Well, you have some changes in your EKG that suggest you may have had a small heart attack,” Kerry stated, ignoring his interruption.

“Heart attack?’

“Yes. We should check a blood test to make sure there was no heart muscle damage. That takes a couple of hours,” she explained as she read from the chart. “And if that’s normal, we can arrange for a treadmill heart scan.”

Arteburn let out a sigh. 

“Look, would you call my doctor, Greg Fonarow?” he asked urgently. “He’s up on Chestnut. I-I just want to get his opinion on whatever you’re gonna do.”

“I’ll call him as soon as I get the blood test results,” Kerry assured him. She passed a page from the chart to one of the nurses and then put her glasses back on her nose. “Don’t worry. I think you’ll find we give the highest standard of care.”

Kerry gave him one more reassuring smile before starting back towards Admin. 

She was barely out of the trauma room door before she backed out of the way as Doug and a team of paramedics rolled in another patient from the chemical plant. They got held up for a moment as the nurses had to move Mr. Arteburn to another room before they could move the new patient in.

The ambulance idled in the Ambulance Bay, waiting on the paramedics to return and start off for the next patient. Given how bad the patients they’d seen so far looked, Kerry figured it was going to be a long night.

And sure enough, as she stepped behind the desk, the radio rang. 

Carol picked it up as Kerry, Susan, and all others in the proximity (save for Haleh, who was on the phone) immediately perked up.

“This is County,” Carol said into the radio. “Go ahead, 17.”

“We’re gonna be bringing in a few more from the site,” the voice said over the speaker. “Including a guy crushed under a building. 32 is responding to the LOL MI.”

“I’m sorry. 32 is responding to what?” Carol asked.

“We got a call for an LOL. 83-year-old woman having an MI. 32 is supposed to go after they’re done over there,” the voice on the radio responded. “They just brought you one from the plant, I think.”

Carol confirmed that 32 was the one who had just dropped off the patient now in the trauma room and signed off. 

A few feet away from her, Haleh was doing her best to make out what the caller was saying while also calming the caller down.

“Okay, okay, honey. Just breathe, okay? Give me one second. Let me get her.” She put a hand over the receiver. “Dr. Weaver? Phone for you. It’s your daughter.”

Kerry and Susan immediately looked up, but they did not have the chance to exchange glances before Kerry was at the phone.

“Annie?” she asked as soon as the phone was to her ear. “Annie, is that you?”

“Momma!” Annie exclaimed in relief. “We were playing outside and then there was this big booming sound and Grandma got surprised by it and her chest started to hurt and it hasn’t gone away yet even though it usually does and she told me to call for help and to call you-”

As Annie hastily tried to explain all that had happened since they’d been playing in the snow, Kerry’s eyes fell on the radio. 

83-year-old Little Old Lady with a possible MI. 

Oh dear God.

“Annie? Annie, honey, stop for a second and listen to me,” she ordered into the phone. When Annie fell quiet (save for the sounds of her scared sobs), Kerry took a shaky breath. “Okay. Annie, I need you to go into Momma’s bathroom. In the top right hand drawer, there’s a bottle of aspirin. A-S-P-I-R-I-N. Aspirin 81 mg. I want you to take the bottle to Grandma and tell her to chew one and swallow it, okay? Not to take it with water. To chew it and to swallow it. Okay? Can you do that for me, Annie?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that,” Annie affirmed though the fear had not left her voice. 

“Okay, good. I’m on my way. I’ll be there soon.”

Kerry hung up the phone and was about to start for her the lounge to get her things for the lounge when the paramedics from 32 started for their rig. 

“Wait, wait! Hold that ambulance!” she called out to them. “Don’t go anywhere. I’m coming with you.”

Though it went against everything they were taught about responding to an emergency, the paramedics waited for her to speed to the lounge and grab her stuff.

Susan had been trying to catch up with her since Haleh said the call was from Kerry’s daughter, but the redhead was zipping back and forth so fast, she only managed to catch sight of the hem of her lab coat heading for the rig.

“What’s going on?” she asked, nearly jogging as she followed Kerry towards the waiting ambulance. “What did Annie want?”

They paused at the open doors of the ambulance.

When Kerry turned to face her, Susan could see they were already brimming with fear and tears.

“The LOL with an MI. It’s my mom,” she said in a voice barely more than a whisper. “Annie said her chest is hurting and 32 is supposed to respond to it, so I’m going with them.”

Kerry tossed her stuff into the ambulance and then gripped one of the sides to heave herself in. Susan scrambled in first and then held out a hand to help her up. 

But when she didn’t immediately climb back out, Kerry opened her mouth to say something. Susan cut her off before she could.

“I’m going with you.”

In the distance, Kerry could hear the sound of more sirens approaching. 

They needed to _go._ There were more patients coming from the chemical plant. They needed to go so that the paramedics could get to the door. 

“There’s more coming,” Kerry said in a shaky but firm voice. “They need you here.”

Susan looked her straight in the eye before taking her free hand and squeezing it hard. 

“Kerry, if your mom is in trouble, I’m not letting you go alone.”

Kerry looked at her for a long moment before giving her the tiniest of nods. Then, she looked up towards the paramedics waiting up front.

“You heard her,” she shouted, slapping the side of the ambulance hard. “Go.”

Kerry was out of the back of the rig, up the porch stairs, and into the house before Susan had even realized they’d arrived. 

She’d held Kerry’s hand firmly in hers the entire ride from County to their house. Of course, she’d wanted to do more to comfort her, but between the paramedics glancing back at them in the mirror every few minutes and Kerry’s anxiety making her rigidly stiff, Susan figured that holding her hand was enough. 

Annie met them at the front door, Suzie not far behind her. 

“Momma, I found the bottle like you asked me to but I couldn’t open it and I gave it to Grandma but she _wouldn’t_ open it-”

“Okay, okay,” Kerry said. “Move so I can get to her.”

“And I told her you said to but she still wouldn’t-”

“Annalise Elisheva, _MOVE.”_

The command jerked Annie out of her panicked explanation. She nodded quickly and stepped out of the way so Kerry could get to where Mildred sat on the couch. 

Susan came in a second later, scanning back and forth as she tried to get more information. The paramedics were right behind her, but she held them back. 

Something told her that they were not going to be needed. 

Instead, she scooped Suzie up into her arms. Within seconds, Annie had shrugged her arms out of her crutches and let them fall to the floor as she wrapped her arms around Susan’s middle and began to sob.

Kerry let her crutch fall too as she dropped to her knees in front of Mildred and immediately started pulling her stethoscope from around her shoulders. 

“No, no,” Mildred said, shaking her head. “Put that away.”

“But I need to-”

“No. You’re not here to save me.”

“Yes, I _am,”_ Kerry insisted. “I’m here. Let me-”

“Kerry,” MIldred said in as firm a voice as she could muster. “I need you to listen to me.”

“And I need _you_ to listen to _me,”_ Kerry pushed back. “We need to get to the hospital.”

“I don’t want to die in a hospital,” Mildred stated through gritted teeth.

“You’re not going to die. Not if we go there now.”

“Kerry Elizabeth,” Mildred said sternly, “I am refusing treatment.”

Kerry’s mouth worked wordlessly for a moment.

“You’re… You’re…”

“I am,” Mildred said, nodding. 

Across the room, Susan quietly nodded the paramedics to go on to their next call. 

Mildred clutched her chest again as another ripple of pain shot through it.

“Momma, if we go now, we can make it stop hurting,” Kerry said in a tiny voice as she took Mildred’s hand. “Please. Let me help you.”

Mildred smiled weakly through her grimace of pain.

“You’re already helping me,” she said as she squeezed Kerry’s hand. “You’re here.”

“But I could-”

“No,” Mildred said, shaking her head again. “Kerry, it’s time. I’m ready.”

“But _I’m_ not,” Kerry squeaked.

“Well, you’re going to have to be. Because I’m not changing my mind.”

Mildred smiled at the hiccup of a laugh she received in reply. But as her body screamed for oxygen, she clutched harder at her heart. 

“I miss your dad, Kerry. I was never meant to go this long without him,” she said softly as tears welled in her eyes. “And he always came home when I asked. I owe him the same courtesy.”

“Momma…”

“I want to see him again.” Tears began streaming from Mildred’s eyes. “And I want to see my babies again.”

“But _I’m_ your baby,” Kerry said as her own tears overflowed her eyes. 

“I know, my love. But you’ve got your own babies to raise.”

Mildred raised a hand to Kerry’s cheek. Kerry closed her hand over it as sobs escaped her chest. 

Mildred looked her daughter in the eye for a long moment before another wave of pain hit her. 

As she clutched her chest even tighter, she glanced up to see Susan watching sadly as Suzie and Annie cried into her shoulder and chest respectively. 

“Kerry, promise me. Promise me you’re going to take care of your girls,” Mildred said, looking back down at her. “All of them.”

“I promise,” Kerry said, nodding earnestly. “I promise.”

Mildred brushed her thumb over Kerry’s cheek as the biggest pain yet flooded through her. 

“You are all my dreams come true.”

Annie peeked at her mother and grandmother and then picked her head up from where she'd buried it in Susan’s side. At the sight of Kerry still kneeling on the ground in front of her Grandma instead of performing life-saving maneuvers, a wave of anger swept through her.

“Why isn’t she helping her?” she yelled through her sobs. “Grandma told me to call for help. Why isn’t she helping her?”

Susan just quietly pulled Annie back to her as the girl’s sobs started anew.

“I don’t think your Grandma was calling for help, honey,” she said quietly. “I think she was calling to say goodbye.”

And, sure enough, it wasn’t long before Kerry called the time of death at 6:51 pm. 

Mildred had taken her _exodos_ , the word from which “exodus” is derived, which translates from Greek as “the road out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how I said in the notes of one of the very first chapters of this story that I'd written the single most painful scene of my writing career? Well, there you have it. A very different "Exodus" than you were probably expecting, but, in my opinion, a nevertheless fitting one. After all, we tend to think of an "exodus" as a group of people leaving. It seems a fitting place for an exit. 
> 
> Until next time.


	23. The Yes/No Game

_Mildred Joyce (Buxton) Weaver_

_September 3, 1914 - February 9, 1998_

_Mildred Weaver, 83, passed away from a heart attack in her daughter’s home in Chicago, IL. Mildred was born Mildred Buxton outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the third of four children and one of only two who reached adulthood. After graduating high school in 1932, she attended the_ _Wisconsin State Teachers College-Milwaukee. Within her first few weeks there, she met the love of her life Henry, an engineering student at nearby Marquette University. They quickly fell in love and were married in the spring of 1935._ _Mildred was preceded in death by her mother Eugenia (Plummer) Buxton, father Thomas Nash Buxton, sisters Esther and Louisa Buxton, brother Daniel Buxton, aunt June Plummer, and husband Henry Weaver. She is survived by her daughter Kerry Weaver, granddaughter Annalise Levin and her father Michael Levin, Jr., his parents Margaret and Michael Levin, Sr., and Susan and Suzie Lewis._

If Mildred’s acceptance of her passing wasn’t enough to show that she really _was_ ready, the paperwork they found in her bedside table would have been. 

In addition to laying out very specific plans regarding funeral arrangements, they found a copy of her will, which had last been updated shortly before she moved down to Chicago, and her obituary, which she had written herself. Susan nearly chuckled when she found it because, if there was anything she had learned in her time living with the Weaver women, it was that they knew what they were about. Mildred’s statement that she knew who taught Kerry to be so meticulous and planful seemed to hold true even after her death.

The one thing that intrigued Susan the most though about the obituary was the eraser marks. 

Unlike the other plans, whose permanency was put down in pen, the obituary was written in pencil. And though the beginning with her history and background laid mostly untouched, the bottom, listing off those left behind, was not. 

It seemed that the thing that was holding Mildred up the most was whether there should be an ‘s’ on the end of the words ‘daughter’ and ‘granddaughter.’ And while the final copy that was printed in both Chicago and Minneapolis newspapers (per Mildred’s request) featured both words in the singular, Susan and Suzie were still listed amongst her surviving family. But though Mildred stopped short of revealing the true nature of Kerry and Susan’s relationship in her obituary, Kerry did not have the same qualms at her funeral. 

Not once in the days immediately following Mildred’s death did she try to hide what Susan meant to her or that they were anything more than friends or roommates. It seemed to Susan that her anxiety in sharing the truth and outing them both was made null in the presence of her immense grief.

Amongst Mildred’s requests was that her funeral was to be held at the Weavers’ church back in Minnesota. And though the pastor that currently presided over the congregation had started his time there _after_ Mildred had moved to Chicago, he recognized the Weaver name and, therefore, the weight that the name held. He gladly stepped aside and allowed the former pastor, who had known the Weavers for over thirty years, perform the funeral. 

Susan and Suzie sat in the front pew alongside Kerry, Annie, Michael, and Adam. But during the receiving lines and wake, they stepped back and allowed Michael to take their place. (After all, the funeral was held two states away, which meant that none of the staff from County were likely to make the trip to pay their respects.)

The only surprise visitor was an older White man who introduced himself as Gabe Lawrence. Michael and Kerry both recognized him, and Michael filled Susan in later that Gabe had been one of Kerry’s mentors during med school. 

Gabe and Kerry’s conversation was the only time Susan saw Kerry crack a smile throughout the entire three days they spent in Minneapolis. 

Apparently, there was some ongoing joke that while Mildred’s gratitude to Gabe regarding taking Kerry under his wing was genuine, her gratitude for encouraging her to pursue a career in Emergency Medicine was _not._ The general agreement was that this was just Mildred being polite, as, of all the specialties Kerry could have chosen, a career in the ER was likely Mildred’s _last_ choice.

When they returned back to Chicago and started sorting through Mildred’s paperwork and mail to determine what needed to be done, it appeared that there was nothing to do. None of the bills were in her name but she’d even gone so far as to start cancelling magazines, memberships, and credit cards. (Which made Susan wonder exactly how long her chest had been hurting her.)

There was little left for Kerry to do, which meant the only thing she _could_ do was grieve.

Michael had explained to Susan during the wake that, in the Jewish tradition, when a loved one passed away, they observed a mourning tradition called a ‘shiva.’ This meant that after the deceased was buried (typically within a day) the loved ones mourned for seven days straight, _shiva_ being a Hebrew word for ‘seven.’

They sat on low stools or chairs, covered mirrors, and just grieved. They mourned, wailed, cried. They felt the grief as much and as hard as it pressed on them and were not expected to do anything else. And even though the Weavers were not Jewish, it appeared that the ‘shiva’ tradition of feeling their grief and nothing else was not very far off from Kerry’s form of mourning. 

Susan had been around long enough to know that there were days when Kerry spent all day in bed. That Kerry’s understanding of her body meant that, if she did not set aside to rest and recharge, eventually, her body would force her to.

One big difference between these days and the days following Mildred’s death was that the ‘bad days’ were marked by stillness. Moving meant pain, so Kerry picked a position and stayed in it as long as she could, even going so far as to put snacks and a bottle of water in her side table drawer so she didn’t have to get up. The grief, on the other hand, wasn’t still. Kerry tossed and turned. She got up to go to the bathroom or eat lunch, and then went back to bed. 

But a bigger difference - and the one that concerned Susan more - was the lack of Annie. 

Whenever Annie was home during one of Kerry’s bad days, the girl always made it a point to spend as much time with Kerry as Kerry would let her. It ranged from putting Rex on the pillow beside Kerry so he could keep her company to curling up in bed with her to picking out a book to read Kerry while she rested. But regardless of how much she did, Annie always did _something_ to try and make her Momma feel better. 

But in the days following their return to Chicago, Annie didn’t do anything like this. She didn’t go to Kerry’s bedroom or try to start conversations with Kerry during her brief forays out of bed. Annie just retreated to her room and when she _did_ come out, she was often quieter and angrier than Susan had seen before, even during the time that Adam was at his most sick.

Because she and Kerry were not legally married, Susan was not able to claim bereavement leave for her mother-in-law. She had to use her vacation time instead - and gladly did so - but it meant that she had to return to work sooner than Kerry did. And since Susan was going back to work, this meant Annie had to go back to school and Suzie had to go back to daycare (which, now that she was almost three, was not the headache it was a few years ago).

One of the first few days after this new normal began, Susan picked Suzie up from daycare and then Annie from school. 

Annie spent so long in her room after getting home that, by the time she finally came out and settled on the living room floor with Suzie, Susan was starting to make dinner. 

At Annie’s arrival, Suzie abandoned the tea party she’d been having with her bunny, two Barbies, and a plastic zebra, and started digging through the toy box. After a second, she pulled out a Playskool medical kit. 

“Play doctor?” Suzie asked, holding it up to Annie. 

“No,” Annie replied, shaking her head furiously. “Something else. I wanna do something else.”

“Play doctor,” Suzie repeated.

“I don’t want to play doctor,” Annie said through gritted teeth. “We have to play something else.”

“Play _doctor!”_

Annie slapped the ground hard with both hands.

 _“I don’t want to play doctor,”_ Annie snapped. “You have to pick something else to play with because I don’t want to play doctor.”

The sound of Annie’s hands against the floor surprised Suzie, but the older she got, the more she proved to be just as headstrong as the rest of them. 

She threw the kit onto Annie’s lap.

 _“Going_ to play doctor,” she said sternly.

Annie threw it back at her.

_“We are NOT going to play DOCTOR.”_

_“Annalise!”_ Susan shouted as the kit hit Suzie with such force that it knocked the toddler backwards. “Annalise, go to your room.”

Annie looked at her, taken aback for a brief second as she could not recall Susan ever using one of her trouble names before. But the shock lasted for only a fleeting moment before she picked up her crutches and immediately ran off to her room, the door slamming shut behind her.

Suzie was fine. The kit was full of light plastic toys, and therefore did not have the heft to _actually_ hurt her. But she was still surprised and angry (and sad), which only intensified after Annie left. 

Susan went to comfort her and, at her touch, the toddler quickly stopped crying. But, admittedly, it wasn’t Suzie that Susan was most concerned about at this moment. 

She turned off the burner on the stove she’d been heating up to make macaroni and instead made for her and Kerry’s bedroom.

The light that poured into the dark bedroom when Susan pushed open the door made Kerry raise her head. At the sight of her silhouette in the doorway, she turned over.

“What?”

Susan sighed. 

“Annie just threw something at Suzie,” she explained quietly. “I think she’s angry because she’s hurting. Someone should talk to her.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Okay.”

When she didn’t move, Susan raised her eyebrows. Even backlit, Kerry could make out the gesture. 

“You mean _I_ should talk to her?” Kerry asked. 

“Well, I would think so…” 

After another long moment, Kerry nodded slowly.

“Okay. Just....” Kerry heaved a sigh of her own. “Just give me a few minutes.”

Susan had to work to fight off the tinge of frustration that rose in her as it looked like Kerry was going to lay back down. 

“You know what? Nevermind,” Susan said, holding up a hand. “I’ll take care of it.”

“No, I-I’ll do it. Just give me a second-”

“No, it’s fine,” Susan said, trying to sound reassuring. “I’ll talk to her.”

Kerry waited for her to say something else, but when Susan just closed the door, she laid her head back down.

Taking a steeling breath, Susan turned to the door across the hall. She raised a hand to knock. 

“Annie?” she asked softly. “Annie, can we talk?”

“No,” a voice replied firmly from beyond the door. 

Susan wanted to push harder, but stopped herself and took a breath instead.

“Okay. Well, I want… Whenever you feel like it, I want to talk, okay?”

“We don’t have anything to talk about.”

It was very clear that, though Annie’s tone was clearly one of fury, it was also full of pain. Sometimes, she and her mother were _so_ alike that it was almost scary.

“Okay,” Susan said through the door. “Well, I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready.”

There was no reply. 

Susan turned back towards the kitchen and towards where Suzie sat playing doctor by herself, using the little plastic stethoscope to listen to her bunny’s stomach.

It was seeing her do this that gave Susan an idea. 

She turned back to Annie’s door.

“We don’t have to do it right now, but when you’re feeling like it, I want to learn how to play The Yes/No Game.”

There was a pause and then footsteps. The door opened just enough for her to see Annie’s face.

“The Yes/No Game is not a real game,” she said, fuming.

“I know,” Susan said, nodding. “But, I figure… I was thinking the other day that it might be a good thing to learn how to do. Just in case I ever need to play it.”

Annie looked at her for a long moment and then narrowed her eyes.

“You don’t know how to play it already?” 

“Well, the only time I’ve seen it played was when you came to the hospital that one time,” Susan explained. “And I just want to make sure that I know all the rules. So, I feel like I should practice at some point.”

Annie considered her for another long second and then the door opened. 

Annie crossed to her bed and sat down, her arms crossed. Susan took this as permission to enter and followed her, taking a seat on the other end of the bed. 

“So, as I understand it,” Susan began slowly, “I’m supposed to point to a part of your body that I think is hurting you? And then you say yes or no?”

Annie’s little jaw was set in frustration, but she nodded, nonetheless.

“Okay. Good.” Susan inhaled deeply and then nodded. “So, can we practice right now?”

Annie narrowed her eyes, but, to Susan’s surprise, nodded again.

“Okay. Let me see if I can do this right.”

Susan pointed to Annie’s left hip. Annie shook her head.

“Okay. So, not there…” Susan muttered. 

She bit her lip as if thinking hard, and then pointed to Annie’s forehead as if indicating a headache.

Annie shook her head again. 

Then, Susan pointed to the center of Annie’s chest. (Which, if the girl didn’t know what it housed before all this, she certainly did now.)

But instead of nodding or shaking her head, Annie just crossed her arms tighter against her. 

“I don’t wanna play this anymore.”

There was a long moment of silence where Susan just looked at her sadly. But her finger did not move.

“I said I don’t want to play this anymore,” Annie said again, angrily though anguish was rising in her voice. 

Susan just stayed quiet, her finger still pointing at Annie’s chest. 

Annie tried hard to continue to irate as she thought she felt, but she couldn’t fight the tears rising in her eyes. 

“Why didn’t she help her?”

“What?” Susna asked, turning her head to hear her better.

“It’s her job to help people. So, why didn’t she help her?” Annie said as the tears started rolling down her cheeks. “Why didn’t Momma help her?”

Susan lowered her finger.

“Why didn’t Momma help Grandma?”

“Yeah,” Annie answered sharply. “Grandma told me to call for help. And Momma came, but she didn’t help her. _Why didn’t she help her?”_

Susan took a deep breath.

“Annie, honey,” she said gently, “your Grandma didn’t want to be helped.”

“But she told me to call 9-1-1. And that’s what you're supposed to do to get help. You call 9-1-1 to get help.”

“That is true,” Susan acknowledged. “But when Momma got there, Grandma told her she did not want to be helped.”

“But… Why?” Annie asked in a tiny voice. “Why wouldn’t she want help? Why would she want to die?”

“Because… Because she was just ready,” Susan replied with a small shrug.

“But I’m not ready,” Annie stated firmly. “I wasn’t ready. Momma wasn’t ready. You weren’t ready. Suzie wasn’t ready.”

“Yeah. But it wasn’t up to us to be ready. It was up to Grandma.”

Annie’s cheeks were now shiny with tears, but she made no effort to wipe them away. 

“But… I don’t want her to die.”

“I don’t think any of us but her did,” Susan remarked. “But your Grandma was alive for a long time. She got to do a lot of really great things. Like… be around for you.”

“But-but if she.... Why was she ready to die? Momma could have _helped_ her.”

Susan thought for a long moment. Then, she sighed. 

“Sometimes, people just _know,”_ she said with another small shrug. “Sometimes they just know that… it’s their time. And, yeah, they have a lot of good reasons to stay around, but that doesn’t change the fact that they know it’s their time.”

Annie picked at the edge of her bedspread. 

“How did she know it was her time?” 

“That I don’t know,” Susan said, shaking her head. “But there _are_ a couple things that I do know...”

Annie looked up at her, her brow furrowed. Susan smiled at her weakly.

“One was that your Grandma loved you so, _so_ much. She was so proud of you and that you got to be part of your life and she got to be part of yours.”

Susan leaned over and picked up a tissue, which she handed to Annie. Annie took it and blew her nose. 

“You know what else I know?”

“What?”

“I know that your Grandma had more love to give people than anyone I think I’ve ever met,” Susan stated earnestly. “Because I remember meeting her and thinking, ‘Wow! She loves Annie with her _whole_ heart.’ And then I think, ‘Wow! She loves _Kerry_ with her whole heart.’ And, _wow,_ she loves your Grandpa and, _wow,_ she loves Suzie… That's _a lot_ of people to love with your whole heart. And, yet, I think everyone who knew her felt that was how she loved them.”

It was at this that Susan felt herself start to tear up too. 

Even though she didn’t know Mildred nearly as long as Kerry or even Annie had, she had still felt like Mildred had cared about her that much too, and even before she and Kerry had started to get along. 

“But what I know more than anything,” Susan continued softly, “is that I am very, very grateful to your Grandma. 

“I’m grateful for the fact that she wanted to help me. Even when she didn’t really know me, she wanted to help me and to help Suzie just because she knew that we needed help and that’s what your Grandma did when someone needed help.

“I’m grateful to her for making me feel like her family. Even a long time ago when we’d just met, she still made me feel like her family. She made me feel like she loved and cared about me, even though I didn’t know yet that she really did. 

“But there is one thing that I am more grateful for than anything else. Something that your Grandma did a long, long time ago. Do you know what that is?”

Annie shook her head. 

“She adopted your Momma,” Susan said with a small smile. “And do you know why that’s the thing I’m most grateful for?” 

Annie shook her head again. 

“I’m grateful for that because it gave me two of the best things in my life,” Susan explained. “It gave me your Momma… and it gave me you.”

Susan offered her hands to Annie as her own tears started to roll down her cheeks. 

For a moment, Annie just sat there. Then, she threw herself into Susan’s arms and began to sob.

“I’m sorry, Annie,” Susan said as she rubbed the girl’s back. “I am so sorry.”

“I… want… her… _back,”_ Annie wailed in between her sobs. “I… want… my… Grandma… _baaaack…”_

“I know, honey. I know.”

Susan did not know how long she sat there holding Annie as the little girl grieved, just that it was long enough for Suzie to come looking for her. 

When Susan spotted Suzie at the doorway looking worried, she motioned for her to come over and join them. 

Suzie climbed up onto the bex next to them. The sight of Annie weeping up close seemed to make the toddler even more concerned. But seeing as they were on Annie’s bed, she knew what to do.

She picked Rex up from next to Annie’s pillow and put him on top of Annie’s head. 

After a second, Annie sat up. Though tears still poured from her eyes, she now looked thoroughly confused. Slowly, she reached up and, upon feeling the familiar presence of the stuffed dog, looked down at Suzie. 

At Annie’s look of confusion, Suzie just pointed to Rex and said, “Feel better.”

Annie looked at her for a second and then looked at Susan, still confused. Susan just chuckled and gently tucked a stray piece of hair behind Annie’s ear.

“I think Suzie wants to make you smile by putting Rex on your head the way you like to do with Momma.”

Annie considered this for a long moment. 

“We need more than Rex to make Momma smile now.”

This statement nearly made Susan’s quiet tears turn into sobs.

“Yeah. So, it’s a good thing she has you,” Susan said quietly. “That’s the worst part about this kind of sadness. The only thing that makes you feel better is time. And it can take a long time to feel better.

“It’s… It’s almost like how sometimes in cartoons one character has a gray cloud that rains down, but just on them. That’s how it feels. And even when you do things that would normally make you happy, the rain is still there. For you just as much as for Momma.”

Annie said nothing, but it was clear she was thinking hard about what Susan had said. 

“I want an umbrella.”

Susan chuckled. 

“Well, I think I owe it to your Grandma to be your and Momma’s umbrella,” she said with a smile. Then, she shrugged. “Though, really, the thing that makes the rain go away best is just time. Time and feeling what you feel. Which means that when you feel like crying, you cry. When you feel angry, you feel angry. Just don’t throw things at your sister when you do.”

Annie hung her head and then let out a sigh and glanced up at Suzie.

“Sorry, Suzie.”

“‘S okay,” Suzie replied with a nod. 

Susan smiled again, only to let out a sigh of her own.

“And, you know, as sad and upset as you feel about Momma not helping Grandma,” Susan said quietly, “just think how much worse Momma must feel. Because Grandma was _her_ Momma. And I know that your Momma would want nothing more than to have helped her Momma… but she knew that she had to listen to her Momma and respect what her Momma wanted.

“But even though she was doing what your Grandma wanted, she’s still very sad and she’s gonna be for a long time. But even though it’s going to take time for her to feel better, we can do things like tell her we love her and spend time with her. And those little things will help her feel better. Even if it’s just a little bit.”

Annie thought about this for a second.

“Do you mean right now?”

“If you want to, but that’s up to you,” Susan replied with a shrug. “It doesn’t have to be right now, but certainly at some point.”

“I think we should go right now.”

“All of us?” Susan asked, her brow rising. 

Annie nodded sincerely. 

“If all three of us help be umbrellas, then that means the least bit of rain gets on her.”

Susan stroked Annie’s hair and then pulled her close to kiss her on the forehead.

“I like the way you think.”

Annie led the way off the bed and across the hall to her mothers’ bedroom, Susan and Suzie following right behind her. 

At the sound of the door and the light from the hallway, Kerry once again lifted her head. But as the sound of footsteps entered the room accompanied by shadowy silhouettes, she sat up and clicked on the lamp on the nightstand. 

Blinking in the light, she frowned in confusion as Annie climbed into the bed and cuddled close to her before Susan took her normal place on the other side of the bed and Suzie did the same with her. 

“What’s going on?” she asked groggily.

“We’re all sad about Grandma and you’re sad about Grandma too, so we want to be with you and help make it not rain as hard,” Annie informed her. 

Kerry looked to Susan for some kind of additional explanation, but received none. Susan just laid her head down, leading Kerry to do the same. 

Susan draped her arm over Suzie and then took one of Annie’s hands. Kerry mirrored her, scooting Annie closer to her and then taking Suzie’s. Then, Susan’s other hand reached out and entwined with Kerry’s.

They stayed like that for a long time, feeling each other’s heartbeats in their hands and listening to the sound of their daughters breathe.

Susan squeezed Kerry’s hand and their eyes met. She smiled softly and mouthed, _“I love you.”_

To which Kerry replied, _“I love you, too.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to my own grandmother, who could meet any stranger and, within twenty minutes, make them feel like she'd known them for years. She passed away during my freshman year of college almost seven years ago, but her spirit lives on whenever my mom sings songs to _her_ grandchildren (my neices and nephews) or we wear polka dots or we make fast friends with someone new.
> 
> I cried a lot while writing the previous chapter, but I cried a fair bit about this one too because after the death comes the grief.
> 
> Those who have read my work before know that there's always some aspect of grief in everything I write. Whether a character dies, a funeral is held, or a loved one simply gets hit by the rain cloud of nowhere, all of my stories must feature some amount of grief. This is due in part to the fact that grief changes you. That the sadness never _truly_ goes away. It just gets buried. It fades. And then suddenly it's back with a vengance. 
> 
> But including grief in my work is more due to the fact that you cannot have death without it. When someone dies, there are always people left behind. They're the ones who have to clean up the mess and pick up the pieces and keep living, even though everything in their mind, body, and soul is screaming to stop. There's suddenly a gaping hole that they have to navigate their life around. 
> 
> This is not going to be the last time there is grief in this story, and since this is fanfiction, I don't really have to warn you when it's going to happen, because chances are you can guess. And, of course, it's not going to be the last of Kerry's grief either, because grief has the unfortunate habit of sticking around forever in some way, shape, or form. 
> 
> Until next time.


	24. On Pause

Though she’d been aware of it in her youth, becoming a parent herself had truly shown Susan how effective giving someone the stink eye could really be. Not only could it be used to tell someone off across the room without saying a word, but it was effective on all ages and regardless of whether the recipient was your child or not.

At least, it  _ usually _ was. The new medical students on rotation in the ER that she was currently giving the stink eye to in order get them to stop reclining in their chair and act like professionals was not working. 

The perk of having med students who were well aware of the ER rules, regulations, and regulat _ or _ prior to starting their rotation due to their volunteering in the clinic had not played out yet, given the volunteers were all first and second-year students and those on their clinical rotations were third and fourth-years. This meant that, not only did the ER staff have to show them the ropes of both basic and emergency medicine, they also had to teach them to act their age.

“While you’re here, you’re supposed to act like doctors,”she sternly said upon giving up on the stink eye and taking a more direct approach. “Which means knock that off.”

“Knock what off?” one of the young men asked before glancing confusedly at his cohort. “We’re not doing anything.”

“Yeah, and you certainly  _ look _ like it. But this is a hospital, not your living room. So, get your feet off the desk, sit up, and act like you’re a doctor,” Susan ordered firmly. “And don’t let me catch you doing that again, because I’m the  _ nice _ one. If Dr.  _ Weaver _ caught you doing that, your asses would be in trouble faster than you could blink.”

To Susan’s surprise (and frustration), the young men did not sit up as asked, but rather just scoffed.

“Dr. Weaver doesn’t care about stuff like that.”

Susan blinked. 

“...What?”

“Dr. Weaver doesn’t care about stuff like that,” the young man said again, this time with a shrug.

“Dr. Weaver doesn’t care about stuff like that,” Susan repeated slowly, as if saying it herself would make the statement sound any less ridiculous.

“Yeah. I mean, she cares about us doing stuff right with the patients and in the traumas, but she doesn’t really care about things like putting your feet on the desk.”

Susan just stared. 

She opened her mouth to respond and then closed it to get a better hold on her thoughts. 

“And when you say, ‘Dr. Weaver,’ you do mean five-foot-four with red hair and limp, right?” Susan asked, narrowing her eyes.  _ “That’s _ who we’re talking about?”

“Yeah. She’s pretty relaxed,” the other young man confirmed, nodding. “She doesn’t really care about small things, just the stuff with patients. Like Luke said.”

Susan could not help the way her mouth fell open at not just the statements, but at the confidence with which they were made. 

“Right,” she said slowly. “Well, then, let’s pretend then that  _ I _ do. Knock it off.”

Susan stared them down until they complied and then turned back towards Admit. She did not find Kerry upon arriving as she’d hoped, but instead found Mark, who, upon seeing her look of shock, frowned.

“You okay?” he asked as Susan drew even with him. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

“Those new med students just referred to Kerry as ‘relaxed,’” Susan informed him, her usual sincerity giving way to the unfathomable. “Kerry…  _ Weaver _ ….  _ Relaxed.” _

Mark considered her words for a moment and then shrugged.

“Well, she hasn’t really been on her A-game in that department for the last couple months.”

“Well,  _ yeah.  _ B ut to go so far as to call her  _ relaxed?  _ What in the hell?”

Mark rolled his eyes. 

“Come on, Susan. You act like her not yelling at people is the end of the world.”

“It  _ is _ the end of the world!” 

Mark gave Susan a look. She sighed.

“Alright. I’ll concede that it  _ could _ be a good thing. But it’s only a good thing if she had made a  _ conscious  _ decision to chill out. And that is not what this is. We all know why this is happening and we should not be enjoying it. We should be concerned.”

But despite how earnest Susan’s feeling was, it was not shared amongst the other staff. 

Mark did not share this, though. He just offered a conciliatory shrug and continued to scribble on the chart in front of him.

“Do you know where she is?” Susan asked. 

“Uh, last time I heard, she was in the lounge doing paperwork,” Mark replied without looking up.

Susan muttered a small word of thanks and turned for the lounge.

Kerry was indeed inside and seated at the table. Several charts and a few complicated looking budget documents were spread out around her.

She barely glanced up when Susan came in, only doing a small double take upon recognition of the visitor. 

“Need something?”

“Just you,” Susan replied as she pulled one of the chairs out and sat down.

“What do you need?” Kerry asked, frowning.

“No, no. Nothing. I meant that in a lovey-dovey sort of way,” Susan said quickly. “Because I can say that kind of stuff in public now, right?”

Kerry did not respond. She just let out a small sigh and turned back to her paperwork.

“I actually came in to  _ warn _ you,” Susan said, edging her voice with mystery to try and get Kerry’s attention, “that a couple of the med students from this rotation just referred to you as ‘relaxed,’ and that you ‘don’t sweat the small stuff.’”

Susan chuckled at the very thought of it and rolled her eyes.

“To which I told them to pretend that  _ I _ did and to knock it off,” Susan continued. “Because we all know that that’s not true. And the fact that they think that is a problem.”

Kerry set her pen down with a huff. 

“What?” 

“You all complain all the time that I get too hung up on the details, and now I’m not and you’re  _ still _ complaining,” Kerry snapped. “I just can’t please anyone, can I?”

Susan’s brow rose, her expression a combination of confusion and offense.

“Do I need to tell you to knock it off, too?” she asked only semi-rhetorically. “Because that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

Kerry did not look Susan in the eye, which Susan took as Kerry’s regret at the outburst. (But she still did not apologize for it.)

“I, for one,  _ want _ you to be hung up on the details. That’s part of who you are at this point, and the fact that you’re not…. Well, it makes me sad. Because I know it means that you don’t feel like yourself.”

Kerry’s brow rose slightly, though she did not look up. 

“Who’s to say this isn’t who I am now?” she asked rhetorically. “Maybe… Maybe this is what I’m like from now on and you just have to learn to live with it.”

Susan rolled her eyes. 

“Okay, come on. I know it’s going to take a while and I know you don’t feel good right now, but you’ll get back to normal eventually. I know you will.”

“No. I won’t,” Kerry replied curtly. “Because as far as I’m concerned, there  _ is _ no normal anymore.”

“What do you mean there’s no normal anymore?”

“Normal,” Kerry began, swallowing back the emotion that was rising in her voice. “Normal is a world with my mom in it. That’s not true anymore, therefore there can  _ be _ no normal anymore.”

Susan took a long breath and then exhaled deeply.

“Okay. Maybe there’s no normal the way we knew it,” she acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean there’s never going to be a ‘normal’ again. It’ll just be a… new normal.”

“Exactly. And who’s to say this isn’t what normal is now. I don’t. I don’t know.” Kerry looked at her watch. “All I know is that I have a meeting upstairs with Anspaugh in ten minutes.”

“About Morgenstern?”

Kerry nodded and began gathering up her papers.

This signaled to Susan that the conversation was over, so she just sighed and stood up. But as she reached the door, she paused and turned back.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I know you’re not going to feel like this forever,” Susan said quietly. “And as far as ‘Who is to say you’re ever going to go back to being yourself? Well... I can think of at least one person who would.”

Anspaugh made a point to shuffle together and then set aside the papers littering his desk to show Kerry she had his full attention as she took a seat in front of him.

“Alright. Shall we get started then?” he asked, picking up a thin document from his pile and putting on his reading glasses.

“Yes, sir.”

“Wonderful. To start off: Doug Ross’ proposal for a pediatric emergency room,” he said as his eyes scanned the front page of the document. He glanced up at Kerry over the rim of his glasses. “Have you read it?”

“Yes, sir. I have,” Kerry replied. 

“Good. And what do you think of it?”

“I am supportive of County’s interest in investing in pediatric emergency services.”

Anspaugh’s brow rose in surprise.

“Really? Well… good.”

As the surprise on his voice moved into his tone, Kerry frowned. 

“Why do you sound surprised?”

“Well, when Dr. Ross approached me with this idea, he specifically named  _ you _ as a possible barrier to moving forward with it. He was very adamant about it, to tell you the truth,” Anspaugh explained. “And while I’m glad to know that’s not the case, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.”

“My thoughts?” Kerry asked, her brow furrowing.

“Your reasoning for support.”

Kerry stared at him for a long moment.

“I’m a mother,” she stated simply, though anger started to rise in her chest. “This is the closest hospital to my house. To my daughter’s school. And while we’ve been lucky so far that any issues resulting in visits here were able to be taken care of on-site, that’s not always going to be the case. Nor is there ever a guarantee of transfer to Children’s Memorial or anywhere else.

“So,  _ of course _ I support wanting to increase our ability to provide pediatric services. And, quite frankly, I’m offended anyone would think otherwise.”

“My apologies, my apologies,” Anspaugh said quickly. “I… That’s not what I meant to imply at all. Please forgive me. I was… I was not aware that you had children.”

Though the anger that had risen in her chest had already subsided, Kerry nodded. Anspaugh muttered another small apology before continuing on.

“So, then you support us moving forward with Ross’ proposal,” Anspaugh said with an air of finality.

“No.”

“No?” Ansapugh repeated. “But I thought you just said-”

“I support investing in pediatric emergency services,” Kerry said, cutting him off. “Doug’s proposal doesn’t do enough.”

Anspaugh’s eyes narrowed slightly. 

“It doesn’t do enough.” 

“No, sir,” Kerry said, shaking her head. “An exam room, a few more pediatric hospital gowns, some additional equipment - that doesn’t make an emergency room. That barely even makes a  _ clinic. _ We rely on specialists in the ER, as well as other departments like Radiology, Surgery, Lab Services… Touting Doug’s idea as an ‘emergency room’ would lead parents to think we’re prepared for more significant pediatric emergencies, which we would not be.” 

“Well, Ross would still have access to the trauma rooms,” Anspaugh remarked. “Meaning he would still be able to respond to pediatric emergencies-”

“In the same way he does now,” Kerry finished. “If nothing significant is going to change, then why bother doing anything? We could just approve his expenses and let him get more equipment.”

“So, then what would you suggest we do, Kerry?” Anspaugh asked, sitting forward slightly. 

“Do you want my honest opinion, sir?” 

Anspaugh nodded. 

“Find out what the requirements are for a Pediatric Trauma Center and meet them,” Kerry replied. “At minimum, it should be a Level 3, but given the ER census and the size of the city, we’d probably need a Level 2, if not a Level 1.”

Anspaugh paused and then sat back in his chair. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, deep in thought. His hands were folded over his stomach, his fingers tapping as he considered her proposal.

“Well,” he said after a long moment of thought, “I don’t see any problem with taking that feedback back to Doug Ross and seeing what he thinks. Perhaps we should revisit this after he has the chance to revise, hmm?”

While Anspaugh had taken his time to think, the momentary return of Kerry’s usual fire died back down, leading her to give him an absent nod. But given that Anspaugh didn’t notice anything different or odd about this nod, he just proceeded as usual.

He set the proposal aside and sat back up in his chair.

“Well, then. Onto the main concern of our meeting,” Anspaugh said. “Regarding David Morgenstern.”

Kerry nodded again.

“I had told you back in the fall when you took over for him that we would reevaluate your performance as Acting Chief of Emergency Services upon his return. I admit that I did not expect these to be the circumstances of his return.”

Kerry nodded yet again.

“Unfortunately, this cannot be a review of your performance against his,” Anspaugh continued, “but rather me informing you that hospital policy requires us to hold a national search for a new Chief of Emergency Services. I wanted you to be the first to know.”

Kerry started to just nod again, but when she realized she should probably respond, she muttered a small, “Thank you, sir.”

“Now, I’m not allowed to put forth a recommendation…” he said slowly, a small smirk growing on his face.  _ “However, _ as Chief of Staff, I do have quite a bit of  _ pull _ with the search committees. So, if I had somebody in mind that I think would do a good job, I could… Let’s just say that I could sway them a little bit.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure you could, sir.”

Anspaugh was taken aback by the response. 

“You...  _ do _ understand what I mean when I say that, yes, Kerry?”

At the sound of her name, Kerry glanced up from where she’d been staring at one of the cups on Anspaugh’s desk.

“Sir?”

“When I say that I can sway the committee,” he repeated with pointed eye contact, “you  _ do _ know what I mean by that?”

“Yes, sir,” Kerry replied, nodding. “It means they listen to you.”

Anspaugh shook his head and let out a huff.

“I’m not supposed to say this…” Anspaugh dropped his voice. “But I  _ can _ push for you in the committee search.”

“The committee search,” she repeated with a slight look of confusion.

He blinked. 

It was so unlike Kerry to be so checked out in a conversation of this importance. He’d expect her to be grateful (or at the very least engaged) about what he was saying, that he started to realize something might be going on.

“Sway the search committee for the new Chief of Emergency Services.”

“Oh.”

“You were listening, yes?” Anspaugh said, raising his brow. “When I said we would need a new one because David Morgenstern has stepped down.”

“Yes, sir,” Kerry said quickly. “Yes, I was listening.”

There was a long silence between them. 

On Anspaugh’s end, there was confusion as he wondered what could make his potential new Chief of Emergency Services act like this. On Kerry's end, it was trying to catch up with the conversation she’d fallen behind on, but more so, it was coming to terms with the truth she had to tell.

“I appreciate your support, sir,” she said slowly. “But I don’t think I’m going to be participating in the national search.”

“Well, why not?” Anspaugh asked, frowning.

Kerry closed her eyes for a second. Her ambition and her grief were at war inside her, fighting to determine what would come out of her mouth next. 

“I don’t know if you heard, but…but my mom died a couple months ago. And it’s… Honestly, it’s barely even been three months. And...” Kerry let out a breath and bit her lip against the tears that were welling in her eyes. “I don’t have the energy right now to participate in a national search. I’ll-I’ll gladly remain on as the Acting Chief as long as you need me to, but… but I’m not going - I just can’t. I just can’t do that right now.”

Anspaugh only knew vaguely of Kerry’s mother’s passing and only due to the memo she’d sent him to let him know she would not be at the staff meeting that week as she’d be traveling out of state for the funeral.

He sat back in his chair again. 

“Well, there’s no  _ rush,” _ he thought aloud. “Perhaps, we could push the search back a few months. Maybe… August? Or September?”

“I appreciate that, sir,” Kerry said, “but I don’t want to be the reason that there’s a delay in finding the ER good leadership.”

_ “Kerry.” _ Anspaugh sat forward and folded his hands on the desk in front of him. “The ER  _ already _ has good leadership. In  _ you. _ I think you could do great things in the future. And I think we could take the time you need.”

Kerry nodded slowly, and for a moment before she spoke, Anspaugh thought she was going to agree.

“I really do appreciate it, sir. But… But it’s just not the right time in my life for this, and I-I don’t know when will be,” she informed him in a carefully controlled voice. “All I know is that, whoever the new Chief of Emergency Services is... it’s not going to be me.”

Anspaugh knew better than to push this time.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

...

Sure?  _ SURE? _ How the  _ hell _ could she say that she was sure? She wasn’t sure of  _ anything. _

As she walked away, back down to the ER and then later out the door, her ambition did a number on her emotions.

She had the full, committed support of the Chief of Staff for the Chief of Emergency Services position. The job she wanted - the job she was  _ good _ at - and she said  _ no? _ She turned it  _ down? _

What the hell was wrong with her? She needed to march back upstairs and tell Anspaugh that, yes, she was interested in participating in the national search and, yes, she  _ did _ want his support. 

But no matter how mean the ambition was, it did nothing to change the grief. She still got in her car and drove home.

The house was empty in the afternoons now. Suzie would come home later with Susan. Annie was at Michael’s. 

Nobody was home to say hello. 

Nobody was home, but her.

She kicked off her shoes and started down the hallway towards her bedroom.

It hadn’t been three months, she thought. Her mother had died February 9th. It was only May 1st.

Kerry fell so deep into her thoughts about how much had changed in less than three months that she only came to upon realizing she was about to walk into the wall at the end of the hallway. She’d gone well past her room. 

To her left was the office/laundry room with the stairs that led down to the basement. To her right was the third bedroom.

The door was closed, which typically meant that Mildred was either showering or asleep. 

As Kerry turned the knob and stepped inside, she was overcome with the thought that she could go turn on the water. She could let the shower run, sit in her mother’s bedroom, and just pretend that that was what was happening. 

Mildred would use the soap that neither Kerry nor Susan had thrown out. And then, when the shower was over, she’d come out in her shower cap and towel and lambast her daughter for skulking around her bedroom while she bathed.

But that wasn’t going to happen. And any comfort the sound and the promise that Mildred would eventually walk out could bring was no match for the sadness she’d feel when she walked back in to turn it off.

She hadn’t really touched any of Mildred’s belongings, save for when she and Susan had checked for any affairs left to attend to. Her glasses were still on the bedside table next to a copy of Janet Evanovich’s  _ One for the Money. _ (Mildred had been rereading the series in preparation for the next book to be released that summer.)

Kerry leaned her crutch against the wall and sat down on Mildred’s bed. The mattress sagged beneath her, which was unsurprising given the likelihood it was the same one Henry and Mildred had purchased upon becoming empty-nesters back in 1979.

She picked up the book and opened it to where the bookmark was, wondering where she was in the book and what the last thing her mother had read was on the night before she died. 

This proved to be a mistake. Not a bad one. Not a problem. Just a mistake.

Because the bookmark that Kerry had assumed was a receipt or a scrap of paper was neither. 

It was a photograph. A Polaroid. Taken of Mildred and Henry holding up a laughing little girl.

Kerry was so used to photos of her mom and dad with Annie that it took her a long second to realize that they looked far too young for the girl in their arms to be their granddaughter.

Apparently, the last thing Mildred had seen before she went to bed on the night before she died were not the words of a Stephanie Plum novel, but a picture of the love of her life and their baby girl. 

Kerry didn’t think consciously of how right she was to say no to Anspaugh. She didn’t contemplate how quickly the emotion overwhelmed her, and how easily the same thing could have happened in the middle of an interview or meeting, even despite her best efforts. 

No, she didn’t think of this nor anything else. 

She just laid her head down on the pillow, breathed in the scent of her mother’s shampoo, and cried.

And cried.

And cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a running joke that, thanks to pursuing a career in social work, I am unable to write fiction (fan or otherwise) without a detailed bio-pyscho-social assessment on each main character. And while I make this joke (mainly with my mom because she's a social worker and therefore the only one who gets it), I'm really not kidding. Before I write anything, I need to understand the characters at a deep level like this because I need to understand all these factors in order to understand a character. Where do they live? Who do they live with? Who do they consider their family? Gathering and/or answering these questions and more are all vital to my process, as they give me an idea of the character and the context in which they live, which I find crucial to writing characters and scenarios that feel real.
> 
> All this is to say that one of my major complaints about _ER_ is that the writers were so focused on letting Kerry be "mysterious" that they forgot to fully flesh out her character until it was important that they do.
> 
> And, I mean, I get it. Their job was to come up with new stuff each season to keep interesting. So, yeah, we're going to find out in Season 5 that she's adopted. She's not going to realize she's gay until Season 7. We're not going to specify the nature of her disability until Season _11._
> 
> But this pisses me off _so much_ , because all of these things change how she interacts with the world. And while as a writer, I understand waiting to reveal information to the reader/viewer until a certain time, I feel strongly that these things should be understood by the writer upfront. And why do I believe this and particularly feel so strongly about this in regards to Kerry Weaver? Simple. Because she tells Carter in Season 5 that her parents have been "gone for about a year."
> 
> And while personally, I'm of the opinion that she's lying to Carter at this point, if we the audience are supposed to take this at face value, that means sometime in Season 4 while she's off firing Jeanie, nearly selling out the ER to Synergix, and having hypoxic seizures, her parents died. And never _once_ is this mentioned or addressed until this moment. And that frustrates me because it puts Season 4!Kerry in a very different light and does not at all align with the I-care-deeply-about-everything-even-though-I'm-not-good-at-communicating-that-through-a-medium-that's-not-administration-or-yelling nature we've seen so far. 
> 
> Basically, the writers did my girl dirty in a lot of ways, but this is the one I'm most upset about. So, in an effort to fix this, we're going to have the emotional continuity she deserves and, in this case, it means that she is going to grieve her mom and it _is_ going to affect her job and her family and everything else. Why? Because that's how people work.
> 
> Until next time.


	25. Keeping Score

Susan had just finished wiping her initials from the board and replacing them with those of the doctors she’d signed them out to when Mark came up behind her and opened his hand for the marker. 

“You are _late,”_ she said, glancing up at the clock. “Weren’t you supposed to be out of here like two hours ago?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said as he scribbled Carter’s initials where his had just been. “Got caught up in stuff. But I’m done now, so I am heading out.”

“Got any fun plans with Rachel tonight?” Susan asked as she handed off the charts to Jerry and started for the lounge.

“She’s got a soccer game tonight at 5 pm,” Mark replied, following her. “Which means I’ve got just enough time to pick her up from soccer _camp_ and swing back home for a snack before heading to the field. Luckily the park’s pretty close to my house, so that shouldn’t take long.”

Mark opened his locker to grab his stuff just as Susan closed hers. She observed him closely for a second before narrowing her eyes.

“Rachel’s in the PeeWee league, right?” she asked slowly. “The eight to ten-year-olds?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Uh-huh,” Susan said, nodding slowly. “And which team does Rachel play for?”

Mark slid his wallet into his pocket and then turned to her, an unsure look on his face.

“The green one?”

“The Crush?”

“Yeah, that sounds right.” Mark’s brow furrowed at the way Susan lit up. “Why?”

“I think Annie’s team is playing Rachel’s tonight,” she informed him excitedly. “She’s on the Strikers and they’re supposed to play the Crush at 5 pm on that field tonight.”

As he and Susan made for the lounge door, Mark’s brow rose not just in surprise, but in anxiety.

“Since when does Annie play soccer?” he asked, blinking as they stepped out into the Ambulance Bay in the direction of the parking garage.

“Well, it’s a recent development,” Susan said with a shrug. “She came to us early this year and told us that she was _going_ to play soccer this summer. Didn’t ask - _told._ But Mildred passed away not too long after that, so soccer kind of fell to the wayside. 

“But I think that the other kids at school started talking about summer sports towards the end of the school year, so she brought it up again, asking us this time. And I was pretty sure Kerry was going to say no, but she didn’t, and, instead, she started looking at what was available and found this league for kids with disabilities.

“Naturally, she figured that would be a good place to start and contacted one of the coaches to see if she could come try it out. The coach agreed, so we got her cleats and shin guards and socks and took her to a practice to see what she thought, and, well… At the end of the practice, the coach pulled Kerry aside and respectfully asked that Annie not come back.”

“Why?” Mark asked in confusion (and concern).

“Well, the coach told Kerry that he thought Annie was a bit too ‘spirited’ for their league,” Susan said, using air quotes around the word ‘spirited.’ “Which any of us watching knew translated to ‘She is so competitive that her aggression is scaring the other children.’” 

“Ah.”

“Mm-hmm. No idea which of her parents she gets _that_ from,” Susan remarked with a smirk. “But since that league didn’t work out and Annie still wanted to play soccer, it meant she’d have to play on a team with able-bodied kids. And that made Kerry kind of leary, because she was worried Annie might not be able to keep up or that they wouldn’t let her play… But she still signed her up for it anyway.

“She contacted the coach of this team and arranged to go to the first practice early so she could introduce Annie and explain what was going on. And he was really sweet about it. Told her to let him know if she needed to take a break and assured us all the kids were just there to have fun, so we didn’t need to worry.

“And, by the end of _that_ practice, Annie was sold on soccer, the coach was sold on Annie, and all the other kids on the team were _terrified_ of her… On the field, at least. That’s been mitigated somewhat off the field thanks to her cheerful disposition and the fact that we bought everyone pizza… But, yeah. She’s a terror. It is _so_ much fun to watch.”

Mark frowned as he and Susan turned left at the street.

“Does she, you know, hit people?” Mark asked, miming elbowing someone.

“Oh no. That’s a house rule. She is not allowed to hit people with her crutches,” Susan said, shaking her head firmly. “But while we were looking at different leagues and stuff, I came across this thing called the ‘American Amputee Soccer Association.’ It’s been around since the 80’s and all the players are amputees so they all use forearm crutches. And while looking at their website, I learned that they have a list of rules on what you can and can’t do with them in a game. Like touching the ball with your crutch is the equivalent of touching it with your hand. Stuff like that.

“So, I printed that out and gave it to Kerry to look at. She ended up showing it to Annie and pretty much told her that she had to follow all the rules or she wouldn’t be allowed to play soccer anymore. And, so far, she hasn’t broken them once. Might have broken a kid’s nose, but hasn’t broken any of the rules.”

At the look on Mark’s face, Susan let out a laugh. 

“I’m _kidding,_ Mark,” she said, chuckling. “It wasn’t broken… I checked.”

They turned into the garage and started climbing up the stairs to their respective parking levels. 

“Maybe Rachel should play hookie tonight,” Mark thought aloud as he climbed. “We can go get ice cream instead.”

“What? You don’t want her going up against a four-foot-tall Kerry Weaver with twice the crutches and twice the self-confidence?”

“Having gone up against the, uh, _regular-sized_ version for a couple years now myself, I can honestly say I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

Susan smiled, but acknowledged it with a shrug. 

“Rachel plays goalie, yeah?” she asked, pausing as she reached the level where she’d parked.

“Yeah. Why?”

Susan gave another small shrug and then waved him away.

“No reason.”

Of course, there _was_ a reason. And if Mark couldn’t have guessed what it was just from his and Susan’s conversation, seeing where Annie was positioned once they took the field would have clued him in. 

As he approached where Susan sat in a folding chair and Rachel ran off to join her team, the coaches did the coin toss. Rachel’s team must have won, as she ran off to the goal to his and Susan’s left and the players on her team doing the kickoff went in the opposite direction. Annie was on the far side of the field opposite them, positioned in between the center circle and Rachel’s goal, meaning she was going to play offense to Rachel’s defense.

When Mark drew even with Susan, she greeted him with an excited smile and motioned for him to sit in the open chair next to her. 

“Kerry’s not coming?” he asked as he set Rachel’s bag down at his feet. 

“She’ll be here later,” Susan informed him. “She’s got off at five and she’s got to pick Suzie up from daycare, so she’ll likely get here around halftime.”

Mark nodded as one of the kids on Rachel’s team made a good pass towards a player close to the goal. But before the kid could take a shot, one of the defenders on Annie’s team, adorned in navy opposite Rachel’s team’s white and green(e), managed to get the ball away from him and kick it away from the goal.

He had to admire the fact that Annie stayed near centerfield until the ball got close to her and didn’t just chase the ball down regardless of position the way the other kids did. (Kids soccer being less a sport with rules and more managing a large horde of third-graders kicking each other instead of the ball.)

“Oh look, Tim,” a woman Mark vaguely recognized as a parent of one of Rachel’s teammates said to her husband. “The other team has a girl with special needs on it. Well, isn’t that nice.”

Figuring this remark was about the one player on either team using crutches (which were now bright orange as she’d outgrown the green ones a few months prior), Mark glanced at Susan and raised his eyebrows. 

“Is she-”

“Mm-hmm,” Susan said as she glanced at him out of the side of her eye. “It happens just about every game.”

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“We did the first time, but then we noticed this inexplicable phenomenon,” Susan explained in a low voice. “Just watch.”

One of the defenders on Annie’s team had tried to kick the ball towards midifield, but one of the midfielders on the opposing team knocked it down with his chest.

“Look, look, honey!” the same woman exclaimed, tapping her husband on the arm and pointing towards the kid. “It’s Paul! He’s got the ball.”

Or he _had_ the ball. Because as soon as the woman’s husband looked up, Annie appeared behind the kid and, with one deft swing forward, managed to get the ball from in between the kid’s legs. One more kick backwards and one of her teammates gained possession.

Mark glanced back at Susan, who was now smirking. She leaned over towards him.

“Every single time, without fail, as soon as a parent makes a comment like that, within thirty seconds, Annie fucking _demolishes_ their kid. She steals the balls from them, she intercepts the pass, she scores on them - it’s different every time. But no matter what, she always makes some great play and it’s _always_ on their kid.”

Mark chuckled before clapping loudly as Rachel stopped a shot from one of Annie’s teammates.

Rachel turned to look at her dad and gave him a double thumbs up, asking if he saw it. He returned the gesture to answer that he had. Then, noticing Susan beside him, Rachel lit up and waved at her enthusiastically.

Susan waved back with a smile. But out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Annie who, currently unoccupied given the ball was on the other side of the field, was giving her a look of frustration for apparently rooting for the other team.

Susan saw the look and just shrugged. She motioned to Mark and then to Rachel as if to explain to Annie from afar that she was there to support more than just her. 

But as Susan was distracted by the three-year-old shouting her name excitedly as she ran away from one of her mothers towards the other, Annie looked back and forth between Mark and the girl in the goal. 

Then, her eyes grew wide. 

She _knew_ that girl looked familiar. 

But before she could say, do, or think anything further, the ball came back towards the center of the field, drawing her attention back to the game.

Though Annie had only been playing soccer for a month or so at most, she was already better at controlling the ball than many kids who’d been playing for years. And (to Kerry’s relief) she’d managed to do so by using her left leg more for balance instead of for kicking, meaning her hip was not as likely to bother her later on.

One of her teammates passed her the ball. She managed to dribble it away from one of the midfielders coming at her from the side, but as she made to move forward, one of the defenders charged towards her. He stuck his foot out too far as he went for the ball and nearly lost his balance, which he prevented by grabbing onto Annie’s shoulder and pulling. 

Given that neither of them were able to maintain their balance, Annie was awarded a penalty kick. 

Kerry took a seat on another chair Susan had brought as the kids started to line up.

“What’s Mark doing here?” she asked Susan quietly after returning his wave hello.

“Rachel’s on the other team,” Susan said happily. “She’s playing goalie.”

Kerry followed her line of sight towards the goal and, upon seeing Rachel there as Susan had said, she sucked in air. 

“What’s wrong?” Susan asked, her brow furrowing.

“Didn’t Annie and Rachel not get along the last time they met?”

Susan’s slowly mouth formed the ‘o’ of realization before she grimaced. 

She waved Kerry away. 

“That was a long time ago,” she said quickly. “I’m sure they don’t remember.”

Kerry looked back at her oldest daughter.

She’d been to enough soccer games and watched Annie kick the ball around in their yard enough to know that she didn’t need to back up _that_ much when going to take a shot unless she wanted it to be as hard as possible. And she had not backed up this far when taking any of the other penalty kicks she’d been awarded so far this season.

“Annie remembers,” Kerry said, her eyes growing wide. “Annie _definitely_ remembers.”

Annie sure did remember. And as she took her steps back, Rachel squinted at her, trying to figure out what was familiar about the midfielder about to take her shot. It was only once she made a quick glance back towards where her dad sat next to Miss Susan and spotted the redhead beside her that Rachel remembered too.

They narrowed their eyes at each other. And then, taking a deep breath, Annie took her shot. 

It was a powerful kick, better than most of the goalies in their league could withstand. But Rachel was not most goalies. 

She dove to her right and caught the ball by her fingertips a moment before she hit the ground.

Rachel’s team (and their parents) all cheered as the kids spread back out. Kerry and Susan clapped politely too. And even though Susan also gave her a thumbs up and cheered her good try, the applause for Rachel made Annie _furious._

She channeled her furiousness into ferocity for the rest of the first half, taking three more very strong shots that were all blocked by Rachel. By the time the teams dispersed to let the kids visit their parents and drink some water, Annie was seething.

“You’re doing a really great job out there,” Susan said, holding up Annie’s water bottle. “I think this is the most shots you’ve taken in any game so far.”

“But I haven’t scored any,” Annie said, casting an angry glance towards Rachel.

“And that’s okay,” Susan said. “Now, drink some water.”

Annie took the water bottle and took a long sip from it. But upon seeing Susan glance at Rachel (checking to make sure that Mark had remembered to bring _her_ a water bottle), Annie’s anger flared.

“Mommy, who are you rooting for?” Annie said in an angry voice just short of a demand.

“I’m rooting for both of you.”

“But you’re not supposed to root for both of us,” Annie said curtly. “You’re supposed to root for _me.”_

“I can root for both of you,” Susan said firmly. “And I do not like your tone, young lady. If you want to play the second half of this game, then I need you to sit down and take some deep breaths.”

Susan pointed Annie to the seat next to her, which had been vacated by Kerry as she and Suzie had gone in search of bathrooms and some popcorn from the snack bar.

Annie still looked thoroughly angry, but nevertheless slid her arms out of her crutches and set them on the ground before sitting down. 

“Hey, Daddy,” Rachel said loudly, smirking as she glanced at Annie. “Did you see that _penalty kick_ I blocked? The one I dove for?”

Before Mark could say anything, Susan cut Rachel a warning look that stopped her immediately. 

“Cut that out. I know what you’re doing,” she said sternly. “It was a good kick and it was a good block. Now, stop this.”

Rachel hung her head slightly in remorse, but busied herself with asking her dad for a snack. Annie did nothing, and just continued to stare at the ground from Kerry’s seat, which was farther from Susan’s than Susan’s was to Mark’s.

Susan scooted her chair closer to Annie’s and dropped her voice so as not to be overheard. 

“I know you’re mad she stopped your shots, but Rachel’s a good goalie, hon,” Susan said in what she hoped was a reassuring tone. “If you don’t score this game, it’s not the end of the world.”

This just served to make Annie’s expression harden even more. 

“That’s not why I’m mad.”

“Okay. Then, why _are_ you mad?” Susan asked, redoing one of Annie’s barrettes that had come loose.

Annie did not answer for a long moment.

“She made me break the rules.”

Susan frowned. 

“What rules? I didn’t see you break any rules-”

“She made me tell about you and Momma when I wasn’t supposed to,” Annie said, cutting her off. 

Susan’s brow furrowed. 

“Annie, you didn’t get in trouble for that,” she said gently. “We knew you didn’t mean to.”

“But I still _did.”_ Annie crossed her arms. “She… She wanted you to be _her_ Mommy and I got mad and I told.”

“Yeah,” Susan conceded. “But I’m _not_ her Mommy. I’m yours.”

Annie’s look of anger changed into one of angry sadness.

“But… But people don’t know that. And-and when you were sitting here watching, you were laughing and joking and touching Mr. Mark, but you wouldn’t do that with Momma. Because you can’t.”

Susan took a second to think about what she’d been doing that made Annie think this. All that came to mind were a couple of playful pokes or nudges. (Admittedly, nothing she also did to Kerry.)

“He’s my friend. You know that,” Susan said seriously. “And you know that I love your Momma and nothing’s going to change that. And also that she hasn’t been in a very joking mood lately.”

“Yeah, but even if she was, you wouldn’t do that with her.”

Susan wanted to say that this (truth) was due to the fact that Kerry was never as publicly playful as Mark was, but she knew that, even when Kerry _was_ in a playful mood, they’d never do that sort of thing in public. They’d act very much like they were now - distant, both relationally and physically. 

“You’re my Mommy,” Annie thought aloud in a quiet voice, “but she could pretend that you’re hers because you can have fun with her Daddy, but you can’t have fun with Momma.”

Susan drew in a long deep breath and squeezed Annie’s shoulder.

“Trust me, honey. We don’t like it any more than you do,” Susan said in a voice barely more than a whisper. “But I don’t think it’s going to be like that forever. And even though we can’t share that now, you know that at the end of the day, when you come home to our house, I’m your Mommy and Momma is your Momma. And that’s not going to change any time soon. Right?”

Annie nodded, but still looked dejected.

“I don’t want you worrying about that right now,” Susan stated. “I want you to rest a little bit, drink some water, and then get back out there for the second half of the game.”

“I’m gonna score on her,” Annie stated with vehemence. “I’m _gonna.”_

“Okay,” Susan replied with a nod. “Then, pull yourself together, get out there, and do it.”

It would take Annie until there were only five minutes left in the game, but she would eventually manage to score the only point her team got that game.

But even though Susan’s cheers were enthusiastic, Annie’s words bounced around her head the entire second half.

She was sitting between two of the people she loved most in the world: Her closest and dearest friend and the person she was so deeply in love with that she couldn’t fathom ever loving anyone else. And yet, the hand she could safely hold was not the hand of the latter.

When Susan reached college and began to learn more about gender, sexuality, and all the variations thereof, one of the first things she came to learn was that every variation of attraction - whether to same, to all, or to none - came with their own brand of loneliness. And while there were parts of this loneliness that overlapped each other, there were parts unique to each that came with the territory.

The most the ‘bi’ in ‘bisexuality’ ever meant in terms of Susan’s attraction meant was ‘both,’ but not in terms of sex or gender (as the second thing she came to learn was that there were that neither were limited to two). 

No, the ‘both’ was in regards to blending. She could blend in with ‘both’, but she wasn’t either. And no matter who she loved, she’d always be assumed to be one or the other. And even when she tried to connect over the instances in which the loneliness overlapped, she was made to feel that the loneliness didn’t overlap _enough,_ which only served to make her feel even more lonely than before.

It was this that had led her to starting coming out to those she trusted. To claim her identity and make it known. To be specific. To be herself and to ensure that those she loved and who loved her always remembered there were more than two options. 

But, in the end, this did little to assuage the guilt and sadness she felt as she sat between two of the people she loved the most, knowing full well that the world would be fine if she held her best friend’s hand, but that she could not the hand of the love of her life. 

That was, after all, the loneliness that most, if not all, of the variations shared. And not one that was going to improve any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the time we reach the end of this, my Google Doc is going to take six and a half years to load. We're up to 231 pages so far and we're only about halfway through. In other words, I hit 100k for the first time in "uc"... and I could very well hit _200k_ for the first time in this. We'll see.
> 
> I know I've said this like seventeen times, but I am so excited for what's coming up. I'm especially excited for the chapter after the next one (though the next one's good too). Because of Kerry's decision in the last chapter, I get to explore something I didn't cover in the other AU that I'm really looking forward to. And then in the chapter after that... Well, let's just say canon is going to diverge even more, but in a _very_ exciting way. To me at least. And I'm sure it will be to all of you too.
> 
> (And it's a happy thing. I promise.)
> 
> Have a good rest of your night! Until next time.


	26. Intervention

Having been awakened from her nap by an orderly needing to make the bed for the next patient, Susan yawned and opened the door to the on-call room. But her plan to fall back asleep the moment her head hit the pillow was interrupted upon seeing a grown man in boxers and a muscle shirt lying supine on the bed.

“Carter?” she asked groggily, blinking as she flipped on the light. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Carter jerked awake the moment light filled the room and, upon noticing Susan at the door, scrambled to cover himself with the thin sheet on the bed.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, nearly falling backwards off the bed as he sat up. “I was just-”

“Living here?” Susan finished, glancing around at the duffel bag and suitcase nearly overflowing with laundry.

“Um… Yeah. Sort of.” He sighed. “I got fired from my job at the dorm and haven’t… I haven’t found a new place yet.”

“Have you been looking?” 

“Of course I have,” Carter said defensively. “Everything’s just either too much or too little… And always too expensive.”

Susan narrowed her eyes in thought for a moment, and then inhaled deeply.

“I’ve got an idea for somewhere you could stay,” she said slowly. “It’s not a huge place, but it should work for you.”

“How much would it be a month?” Carter asked hesitantly. “Because… Well, I’m living off a resident’s salary.”

Susan nodded, remembering the rumors that had circulated that Carter had cut himself off from the Carter Family Trust (and the Carter Family themselves).

“It won’t be that much,” she assured. “But it might take some convincing. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

Carter nodded. 

“Thanks.”

“Mm-hmm,” Susan replied as she went to pull the door shut. “But please, for the love of God, put some clothes on.”

Kerry opened the front door, mentally tabulating what in the refrigerator was about to go bad and therefore needed to be integrated into her dinner plans tonight, when she stopped suddenly.

Susan, Annie, and Suzie were all sitting on the far couch waiting for her. When she glanced up at them, they all watched her expectantly.

Their looks did not change through her kicking off her shoes, setting her crutch against the wall so she could shrug out of her coat, or crossing to the table to set down her purse. Their eyes just followed her movement closely, which unnerved her.

“What?” she snapped after a long moment of expectant silence. “What’s going on?”

Annie and Suzie glanced at each other, but it was Susan who sighed and then spoke.

“This is an intervention,” she said simply.

“An intervention,” Kerry repeated, her eyes narrowing. “For what?”

“We know it has not been a very good year for you,” she said slowly. “And we know it’s just going to take time, but the girls and I have been talking and we think we know something that could help.”

“Really? And what would that be?”

“We think you need another child.”

“What?”

“What?”

_“What?”_

At the thoroughly surprised exclamations from Annie, Suzie, _and_ Kerry, Susan raised her defensively.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” she reassured them all in turn. “It was a joke that obviously didn’t land, so forget I said anything.”

Once sure they believed that she was kidding, Susan looked back up at Kerry. 

“In all seriousness, though,” she said sincerely. “Carter has been living in the on-call room since about Halloween. He cut himself off from his family’s money after his cousin OD’d and he’s struggling to find somewhere to stay. So, I think he should stay with us.”

Kerry stared at her for a moment and then gave her a look of annoyance.

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Kerry, come on,” Susan said, standing up. “We’ve got space and-”

“Where do we have space exactly?” Kerry asked, her irked expression deepening. “Here? The dining room?”

“The basement,” Susan answered coolly. 

Kerry’s brow furrowed, though her confusion only added to - but did not replace - the anger in her expression and tone. 

“Well, unless you want to put Carter in the storage room, then you’re out of luck, because the only bedroom in the basement is Suzie’s room.”

Susan paused for a second. She closed her eyes for a moment as she took a deep breath.

“I know,” she said quietly. “I think Suzie should move up here.”

Susan watched the look in Kerry’s eye change from one of frustrated bewilderment to sad shock. 

There were, of course, three bedrooms on the main floor, and only two of them were currently in use.

“No,” Kerry said in a small voice. “No. No. That’s… That’s not going to happen.”

“Kerry, I know you miss your mom. We all do,” Susan said gently, laying a hand on Kerry’s arm.“But… But she’s not-”

“She’s not what?” Kerry spat. _“Say it.”_

Susan looked at her sadly. 

“She’s not coming back,” Susan finished quietly. “And I know she would want us to remember and miss her, but I think she much rather us honor her memory by helping somebody in need than to keep a room we’re not using just because it was hers.”

The ache that had been present in Kerry’s chest since the day her mother died and that had grown stronger at Susan’s suggestion was now gripping her heart so strongly it felt almost hard to breathe. This was due in part just because they were talking about Mildred, but it was due more to the fact that Susan was right and Kerry did not want Susan to _be_ right.

And, as often happened when Kerry was hurting and/or wrong, she did the natural thing for her to do and lashed out.

“How dare you? How _dare_ you?” she hissed as tears welled in her eyes. “I said no and that’s final.”

“Momma-”

“Stay out of this, Annie,” Kerry warned.

“But _Momma-”_

“Annalise, I said stay out of this.”

Kerry turned for the hallway, but before she could leave, Annie appeared in front of her. And as she felt there was no other way to make her mother listen, she threw her body across the opening, her arms and legs spread to prevent Kerry from proceeding forward. 

“We’re all sad that Grandma died and we all miss her a lot, but Mommy is right,” she said firmly, her little brow knitting in sincerity. “Carter doesn’t have anywhere to live and Grandma would want us to help him, just like she helped Mommy and Suzie a long time ago. It’s what Grandma would want.”

Kerry looked at her for a moment, wanting nothing more than to put her foot down and hold her ground, but unable to do so (and not just because she knew they were right). 

“Alright, fine,” she conceded in a low voice. She glanced back at Susan. “But I’m not gonna be the one who cleans it.”

It took a few days, but soon Mildred’s belongings had been gathered together so that Suzie’s furniture could be moved upstairs into the newly vacant bedroom. 

Some things like her clothes were boxed up to be donated, while other things like her jewelry had been set aside so Kerry could go through it when she was emotionally able to do so. The photographs displayed in her room were given new homes on the wall of photos in the hallway or other places around the house.

(Neither of them said anything when Susan put the photo from Mildred’s nightstand on Kerry’s, but given that it was not taken off but rather readjusted so it could be seen better when lying down, Susan figured it had been deemed acceptable.)

Carter moved his stuff into the basement a couple days later, and the girls quickly filled him on all the house rules. Susan assisted in this by explaining safety procedures for living in the basement, and then privately informing him that, while they knew him and trusted him to be safe, if they ever found out he was doing anything nocuous while living in their house, she’d see to it personally that the police never found his body.

The only person that hadn’t really done anything to orient him to his new living situation was Kerry. Susan had filled Carter in as to why this was likely to be, and while Carter understood it, he still felt the need to clear the air. 

He got the chance to do so on a Friday afternoon in mid-November. Kerry was off and he wasn’t on until later in the evening, meaning he had the chance to talk to her alone.

Carter found her in the kitchen cleaning. _NPR’s_ Terri Gross discussed the political implications of the upcoming movie _Enemy of the State_ from the radio on the counter.

Kerry must have heard him coming down the hall as she didn’t jump when she turned and saw him standing there. She just sighed and continued loading the dishwasher. 

“I’ve got something for you,” he said slowly.

He could see her brow rise slightly as she put detergent in the dishwasher and then closed it. 

“You do?” she asked in a flat voice as she turned the dial and pressed the button to start it .

“Yeah. Think of it as a sort of… peace offering.” 

Carter carefully placed the gift on the counter and then stepped back. Kerry glanced sideways at it, and, her curiosity apparently piqued, picked it up to observe it better.

“It’s fair-trade coffee. From a grower’s collective in Kenya,” Carter explained. “Susan said you lived there once and thought you would like it.”

Kerry nodded slowly as she read the back of the package. Then, she nodded a little faster and set it back down on the counter. 

“I do,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Of course. And, I just wanted to say that…” Carter took a deep breath. “I wanted to express how grateful I am for this. Really. It hasn’t been that great of a year for me, and I know it hasn’t been the greatest for you either. But I just wanted to really thank you for this because... because this really makes it feel like things are starting to change for the better. So, thank you.”

Kerry nodded again and turned back to the counter to turn off the radio.

“Well, you shouldn’t thank me. You should thank Annie. She was the one who convinced me to let you move in,” she informed him, trying to be her normal aloof self. 

Carter seemed to see through the ruse and just chuckled as he leaned back against the counter. 

“I’ll be sure to thank her, too.” Then, he paused. “She’s not here tonight, though, right?”

“No, she’s at her dads’,” Kerry replied. “Tuesday nights and Thursday nights through Saturday at sundown.”

“Sundown? That’s kind of a random time for her to come home.”

Kerry glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. 

“They’re Jewish,” she stated in an exasperated voice. “That’s the end of Shabbat.”

“Oooh. _Oh._ Okay. That makes sense.” But then Carter’s brow furrowed. “Hang on, doesn’t Jewish heritage go through the mother’s side? I… I dated Jewish girl once and she told me that.”

Kerry gave a small shrug. 

“Yes, it does. So, technically Annie is only _half_ -Jewish. But she’s being raised Jewish, she practices Judaism, and she certainly considers herself to be Jewish, so we drop the half,” Kerry explained. “I think whether her children will be considered to be born to a Jewish mother depends on whether she has a bat mitzvah when she’s old enough.”

“Do you think she will?” 

“Well, considering she’s already requested that she gets new blue crutches prior to the celebration, I’m fairly certain of it.” 

Carter chuckled, but it quickly stopped off as Kerry let out a huffing sigh.

“And who knows? Maybe she _was_ born to a Jewish mother,” she remarked as she pulled a glass out of the cabinet in front of her. “I don’t know.”

Carter frowned at her in confusion as she turned for the fridge to pour herself a glass of apple juice (which Carter had been surprised to learn upon moving in was a staple in their fridge and had nothing to do with the presence of young children).

“What do you mean you don’t know?” he asked hesitantly. “I mean your mom wasn’t Jewish and you weren’t raised Jewish, so, why wouldn’t you know?”

“I was adopted,” Kerry informed him bluntly. “My parents couldn’t have children of their own. They adopted me when I was six days old.”

Carter nodded slowly in understanding, his expression slightly remorseful. 

“And you didn’t ask them about your biological parents before they passed away?”

Kerry stared ahead of her for a moment as that ache grew again. She shook her head. 

“I didn’t think it was important,” she said with a little bit of frustrated regret in her tone. Then, she sighed. “But, even if I did, I don’t think they knew anything.”

Carter gave a small shrug of acknowledgement.

“You know, with the Internet, you could probably find them if you wanted to,” he suggested in a casual (but cautious) voice. “To at least learn about your family medical history and stuff. For you and for Annie’s sake.”

To his surprise, Kerry gave a small nod. 

“I’ve thought about it,” she said in a small voice. “But I haven’t because I… Because I can’t tell if I want to do it for reasons like that or if I want to- to replace what I don’t have anymore.”

As she spoke the words aloud, admitting them to another person for the first time, the ache surged up and overwhelmed her.

She gripped her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut as she willed them not to fill with tears yet _again_. (She had recently reached the period in new grief where she still had no control over when the sorrow washed over her and how strong it was when it did, but she felt betrayed and angry whenever she lost control over it.)

“I knew it was going to hurt,” she said through clenched teeth, still gripping her forehead as tears flowed down her cheeks. “But I.... I never knew it was going to hurt _this much.”_

After a long moment, she released her forehead and instead crossed her arms tightly. She took a few sniffling breaths as the moment of sadness gave way to anger. 

“I should have known. I should have… I should have seen it coming,” she said firmly, her jaw still clenched. “I _knew_ her chest had been hurting her. I _knew._ But I… I didn’t think about it. I ignored it because she did and…”

Kerry balled up her fist and slammed it down on the counter next to her, which made Carter jump. 

“What’s the point being a doctor if I don’t catch things like that? What’s the point of knowing what I know if-if-if I ignore the warning signs and d-don’t make her do something about it?”

Carter planned on waiting for Kerry’s heavy breathing to even out some before he responded, but before he could, she threw her hands up and then put them on her hips, an aggrieved smile on her face.

“Not that it would have mattered. Not that she would have listened to me. Or done anything about it,” she said with a scoff. “She had all her shit together. All her affairs were in order. Because she knew it was coming and she didn’t do anything to stop it. Because she wanted to die.”

“Did she want to die or was she _ready_ to die?” Carter asked. “Because those are two different things.”

Kerry inhaled deeply and, for a moment, both she and Carter thought she was about to tell him off. But then she forced herself to exhale. 

“Fine. She was _ready_ to die.” Then, more tears, borne of anger and hurt just as they were out of grief, welled in her eyes. “So, why didn’t she bother to tell _me_ that?”

Saying this aloud, voicing that which she’d felt had been holding her the most hostage in grief since she and Mildred had spoken their final words to each other, made the ache in her chest burst forth stronger than ever before. It coursed through her, her grief exploding through every cell, every molecule of her being, and if it hadn’t been for the step stool near the sink offering her a seat, Kerry would have sunk all the way down to the floor.

The most Carter could do as she sat on the stool, elbows on her knees and face buried in her hands as she sobbed, was to grab a box of tissues from the living room and offer it to her when she came up for breath.

She muttered a word of thanks and then took a few from the box. After wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, she gratefully took Carter’s offered hand to help pull her up.

“I don’t know why your mom didn’t tell you,” he said, setting the box down next to where she leaned back against the counter. “The only reason I could even think of was that she was ready and she knew if she told you, you would… forcefully intervene.”

Carter couldn’t tell if the sound Kerry made was a sniff or a chuckle, but she did seem to relax somewhat. 

“But even if she did tell you,” he continued, “I don't think you’d feel any better than you do right now.”

Kerry, who had glanced up at the ceiling in an effort to stop more tears from falling, looked back down at him. Despite the way her eyes narrowed, her expression was one of curious contemplation.

“Why do you say that?” 

Carter shrugged and leaned back against the counter to Kerry’s left. 

“Well, imagine someone gets cancer. And they’re told it’s terminal and they’re given a timeline: One year, six months, two weeks. But whatever it is, they go to all their friends and family, to all their loved ones to say goodbye. But… But even knowing it’s coming, even when they’ve all said goodbye, when that person finally does die… Their loved ones are still going to get knocked out by the grief. They’re still going to wish that they’d gotten more time or that they’d said more.”

Kerry stared at one of the chairs at the table opposite her for a long moment.

“I’m going to do this to Annie someday,” she said in a voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m-I’m… There’s going to be an accident. Or I’m going to get sick or-or I just won’t wake up… And then she’s going to feel like this.”

The thought of it caused a fresh batch of tears to roll down her cheeks. 

“Well… at least for her, she’s going to have a sister to help get her through it.”

This time, Kerry _did_ let out a small laugh. 

“You’re right. I misspoke… I have _two_ daughters that I’m going to do this to. And Susan.” Kery bit her lip against the fresh sobs rising from her chest. “Unless they do it to me first.”

Carter exhaled deeply and gave a small shrug. 

“That’s the occupational hazard of empathy I suppose,” he said, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgement. “You know… Pain.”

Kerry considered his words for a second and then looked up at him. Tears still rolled down her cheeks though her expression had changed to one of astonishment.

“What did you just say?” she asked slowly, not taking her eyes off of him for a second.

“Well, I just meant that empathy is the first step to building a relationship with someone, right? First, you empathize with them. You feel for them. And empathy leads to care, and care leads to love. And when you love, you know you’re gonna lose.”

“Yes, but you didn’t say that. You said ‘the occupational hazard of empathy is pain,’” Kerry said, her brow furrowing as she straightened up and raised a finger at him. “Where did you hear that? Where did you learn that from?”

Carter shrugged and then offered a sheepish smile.

“I don’t know. It just sort of came to me,” he admitted. “Why?”

“Because there’s only one person I’ve ever heard say that before,” Kerry said sincerely, “and they said it exactly the same way you just did.”

Carter lowered his hands, his eyes widening in disbelief.

“Don’t tell me it was your mom.”

“No,” Kerry said, lowering her finger and observing Carter with something just short of wonder. “It was my dad.”

Carter couldn’t help the way his mouth fell open slightly. 

“Well, maybe, wherever he is, he sensed that you were feeling sad about your mom and possessed me for a second. So I’d say that to make you feel better.” When Kerry narrowed her eyes slightly, he immediately raised his hands defensively. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I didn’t mean that to be offensive or-or even to make light of it-”

“No,” she said, cutting him off gently, though she was clearly deep in thought. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

As Carter once again lowered his hands, this time watching her reaction closely in case of potential outburst, Kerry glanced at him and let out a watery chuckle.

“Relax,” she said with a small smile. “I think he would have thought that was funny.”

Carter nodded (though he didn’t look at all convinced by this).

“You know, when Susan proposed having you move in, she originally said that I needed another child. Meaning you,” Kerry informed him as she took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “I guess if you’re occasionally wise like they are, you can stay.”

“She said that you needed another child? And that that child was _me?”_

“Mm-hmm. Though, I’ll admit for a split second, I was very certain it meant that Susan was pregnant.”

“Susan is most definitely _not_ pregnant,” a voice said from near the front door. “And, frankly, Suasn wants to know why you think she is.”

“I was just telling Carter how you suggested that he move in with us,” Kerry said as Susan kicked her shoes off. “And that when you said you thought I needed another child, there was a moment where I thought you were pregnant.”

“Really?” Susan asked, greeting Kerry with a kiss on the cheek.

“Yes,” Kerry confirmed. “There was a split second where I thought, ‘Oh my God, she’s pregnant.’ Which was immediately followed by the thought, ‘Oh my God, how can she be pregnant?’”

Susan nodded and then shrugged.

“Well, full disclosure, I _am_ pregnant. And it’s Carter’s baby,” she informed Kerry seriously. “That’s why I convinced you to let him move in with us. So I could have my cake and eat it too.”

“She’s kidding, she’s kidding,” Carter assured Kerry frantically, his eyes wide with horror. “I swear we’ve never-”

“Carter, relax,” Kerry said, holding up a hand. “I know she’s kidding.”

Carter still looked fearful for a second, which made Susan and Kerry both chuckle.

“Yeah, I’m kidding,” Susan admitted as she wrapped her arms around Kerry from behind. “There’s only one of you I have any interest in eating.”

The hard slap to her thigh Susan received immediately after saying this was well worth it given how red both Carter and Kerry’s faces grew at the remark.

Carter pretended to check the clock so he could mutter something about needing to get ready for work and make his escape. Kerry just turned on Susan, who looked _very_ pleased with herself.

“Your face is almost as red as your hair,” Susan said, smiling. 

Kerry rolled her eyes, but nevertheless let Susan wipe away some of the tears from her cheek.

“Talking about your mom?”

“What do you think?”

Susan pulled Kerry back into her arms. She nuzzled her face in Kerry’s neck, hugging her tightly from behind for a long time before finally lifting her head and setting her chin on Kerry’s shoulder. Kerry lifted a hand to Susan’s cheek and then turned to kiss _her_ on the cheek. 

When Susan released her, Kerry took another tissue from the box and finished wiping her eyes. 

“I really _did_ think you were pregnant for a second,” Kerry said with a chuckle. “But what was strange was that once I figured out that wasn’t what you meant, I sort of felt… disappointed. Kind of like how I’ve heard sometimes people take a pregnancy test and it comes back negative, and even though they _wanted_ it to be negative, they still feel a bit disappointed.”

Kerry opened the cabinet beneath the sink to dispose of her tissues and then looked back up at Susan.

“Not that I’d know how that feels. I’ve only ever taken one pregnancy test in my life, the outcome of which is at her dad’s house tonight.”

Susan chuckled, but then tilted her head slightly, observing Kerry curiously.

“Do you want more kids?”

“I didn’t _think_ so.” Kerry paused to consider for another second, and then shook her head firmly. “No, no. Two is enough. In fact, two is _plenty.”_

“Yeah. Though, if you _did,_ we could do one that’s yours, one that’s mine, and one that’s neither of ours, though all three belong to us,” Susan thought aloud. “And one sometimes belongs to Michael.”

Kerry thought about the suggestion for a moment, and then just pulled Susan back towards her.

“Maybe,” she said, laying her head on Susan’s shoulder. “Let’s just see what happens.”

“Well, Kerry, we can’t just see what happens. If we want more kids, we have to be very _planful_ about it,” Susan stated flatly. “We don’t get the luxury of an unplanned pregnancy.”

Kerry nearly snorted. She picked up her head, though she still held Susan around the waist.

“I meant let’s just see how we feel later on,” she said, rolling her eyes. Then, she dropped her voice. “And besides, one is enough for one lifetime.”

Susan smiled. 

“Annie the accident?”

 _“No._ Annie the _unexpected blessing.”_ She chuckled and shook her head slightly. “I think I called it an accident the day we told my mom and dad, and my mom made it a point to call it an ‘unexpected blessing’ for the rest of my pregnancy. At least until she and my dad moved down here to help take care of me while I was on bedrest because I was in so much pain that I could barely move… But I think she picked it back up once Annie was born.”

Susan smiled. Then, she looked thoughtful.

“You know, I think your mom would want us to have more kids.”

“Are you going to use that as an excuse to push your agenda from now on?” Kerry asked with a scoff.

 _“No,”_ Susan said earnestly. “I’ll only ever say it about things I truly think your mom would want, which fall into three categories: Helping people, loving you, grandchildren.”

Kerry gave her a look of (feigned) exasperation as Susan counted the reasons off on her fingers. 

“But if you want me to use it to push my agenda, I can do that too,” Susan said with a shrug. “In which case, I think your mom would want you to kiss me.”

But before Kerry could say anything, Susan’s eyes grew wide.

“Actually, I take that back. I think your mom really would, because that falls under ‘loving you,’ which is a two-way street.”

“Well, I think my mom would want you to stop talking,” Kerry said slowly, smirking as Susan’s mouth fell open.

“And I think your mom would say that is rude and that you should apologize to me.”

Susan crossed her arms and turned her nose up at Kerry in mock offense. Kerry sighed. 

“Are you going to do this all day?”

“I think your mom would want me to.”

“And I think she would think you were taking orders from my dad.”

Susan, who had closed her eyes as part of her mock offense, opened them and glanced sideways at Kerry. 

“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

Kerry smirked and gave a small shrug. 

“It depended on the day. And on the order.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you playing along at home, the "Occupational hazard of empathy is pain" line Kerry says she'd only ever heard said by her dad comes from [Chapter 7 of the prequel fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554961/chapters/49015880). Henry Weaver doesn't say it _to_ her in that chapter, but rather says it _about_ her in a conversation with Michael Levin. 
> 
> I knew that I wanted Carter to move in with them in this AU as well, but figuring out how that would happen was a little difficult. For one, Kerry's in a _very_ different state of mind than she was at this point in canon or in the other AU. As well - and perhaps the part I found even more difficult - was that I set a very high standard for myself in that [chapter of the other AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901180/chapters/47011093) with the writing of the "Family is a Forest" monologue. Not only did that really come to represent the entire theme of that AU and the one-shot collection set in that universe, I personally was so proud of it that I painted the trees of my own forest and laid those words (sans _ER_ references) over top of the trees as a Christmas gift to my mom. 
> 
> But as I thought more about this AU and realized that Carter moving in would require them to move Suzie into Mildred's room, how this chapter would play out started to come together in my head. And as I was talking out the dialogue, desperately hoping for something inspired like in the other AU, I found myself saying those same words from the prequel. There is a special power in hearing phrases and words that a certain loved one used to say, and it felt right for that to be the direction their conversation took. 
> 
> I'm very excited for the next couple chapters. I hope you are too.
> 
> Until next time.


	27. The New Girl in Town

Susan and Kerry were looking over a chart in Kerry’s hand, quietly discussing what they thought the resident that wrote it must have meant, when they heard footsteps approaching them. 

When Kerry felt Susan stiffen after looking up, she frowned and looked up to figure out what had caused the peculiar reaction. But this only made Kerry frown further, as the only people she could see were Mark and a middle-aged White woman in a black suit.

“Kerry, Susan,” Mark said as he and the woman paused in front of them, “have you two met Dr. Lee yet?”

When both women shook their hand, Mark made his introduction.

“Well, this is Amanda Lee, our new Chief of Emergency Services,” he said, motioning to the woman beside him. “Amanda, I’d like you to meet Susan Lewis and Kerry Weaver, some of our Attendings.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Lee said, smiling as she shook both of their hands in turn. “Especially you, Dr. Weaver. I’ve heard so much about you from Dr. Anspaugh. So much in fact that when he was explaining things to me, I kept thinking, ‘Oh my God, why didn’t _she_ get the job?’”

Lee chuckled, but the other three Attendings did not. 

“I, uh, did not apply for the job,” Kerry said with an awkward smile. “Due to… personal reasons.”

At Kerry’s reaction, and the glance exchanged between Mark and Susan, Lee grimaced. 

“I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to imply… I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m always putting my foot in my mouth. What I _meant_ was that I look forward to working with you and appreciate the materials you left for me.”

Kerry nodded as graciously as she could (though she’d actually been in a good mood the day Anspaugh came to collect her binders from her, meaning the act of giving them up had stung quite a bit).

Mark could sense the awkwardness and muttered something about ‘more people to meet’ before leading Amanda away. Kerry and Susan watched them ago before Kerry turned her attention back to the chart. 

Susan, however, turned on Kerry, her eyes wide. 

“There is something wrong with her,” she said in a sing-song voice. 

“You only spoke to her for thirty seconds. You can’t possibly know that.”

“I can and I do,” Susan stated sincerely. “There is something wrong with her.”

“She seems very friendly,” Kerry said with a small shrug as she looked down at the chart. 

“Exactly. She _seems_ friendly. But that doesn’t mean she is.”

Kerry rolled her eyes.

“She seems very friendly,” she repeated for emphasis, “and if she got the job, then she is also probably very accomplished and good at what she does.”

“You mean murder?” Susan asked, raising her eyebrows. “Because, Kerry, we don’t want her to be good at murder. If she’s good at murder, then we’re all in trouble.”

Kerry looked at her for a second before letting out a laugh. 

“I don’t… I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Susan said as a smile grew on her face. “I’m just glad I could make you laugh.”

A touch of pink rose in Kerry’s cheeks. Satisfied, Susan let out a sigh.

“Maybe the reason she doesn’t feel right is because that job is supposed to be yours,” Susan said in a quieter voice. “I don’t take orders from blonde women. I only take orders from short redheads.”

“And when was the last time you actually did something I asked you to do?” Kerry asked, glancing up at Susan and narrowing her eyes. 

Susan paused, seemingly considering the question. Then, she shook her head. 

“I’m sorry. When I said that I only ever take orders from short redheads, I was exclusively referring to Annie,” Susan clarified. “I’ve never listened to you once and I never intend to.”

“Well, that explains why the dishwasher was still full this morning.”

Susan nodded in acknowledgement.

“And, hey, maybe I’m right and there _is_ something wrong with her, and then you get the job next,” Susan suggested as she joined Kerry in starting down the hall.

“Or maybe she’s perfectly normal, she’s here for twenty years, and I missed my chance.”

Susan’s light-hearted tone vanished immediately and was replaced with crestfallen concern.

“Do you really feel like you missed your chance?”

Kerry said nothing for a moment, and then gave a half-hearted shrug. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “There’s some days where I feel better and I regret it, but most of the time I just feel kind of… _eh._

“And besides, you and Mark have helped step up to take care of some of the administrative stuff, which has been nice. It gives me the chance to focus more on practicing medicine. Both here and at the clinic.”

Kerry paused and turned to Susan. Skillfully hiding the gesture with the chart, she brushed her finger across Susan’s hand. 

“And, of course, it’s given me more time with you and the girls,” she said with a small smile. “Overall, it was the right choice.”

“Yeah. I just wish it wasn’t a choice you had to make.” Susan cocked her head slightly in question. “Does the Master Plan still work if it’s at another hospital?”

Kerry shrugged.

(Technically, yes, but that was not necessarily preferred given how much she’d grown to love County and the people that worked there.)

“On the brightside,” Susan said, glancing around and then dropping her voice even further. “Now that you’re officially not in charge anymore, there’s nothing stopping us from making out in the drug lock-up.”

Susan was not surprised that Kerry rolled her eyes and let out a groan (as multiple attempts to suggest such a thing were met with the same reaction, which Susan had come to consider a worthy consolation prize).

“I don’t want to make out in the drug lock-up,” Kerry moaned. “It’s open. Everyone could see us.”

Susan’s brow rose in surprise at the reasoning behind Kerry’s response, so she paused for a moment, thinking.

“Scrub closet?”

Kerry considered the offer and then glanced down at her watch. 

“Alright, sure.”

Although Amanda Lee’s reign over the ER moved from days to weeks and weeks to over a month, her continued presence did nothing to alleviate Susan’s suspicion of her. And it certainly didn’t help that no one else - including the two people she could count on her to side with her - held the same opinions.

Despite their awkward first meeting, Lee had won Kerry over by holding true to her comment that she wanted to work with Kerry on ER projects. This had led to them working together to come up with a plan to improve wait times for Psych consults, beginning with a time study on how long they currently had to wait.

But it was not Kerry’s working with Lee that bothered Susan so much as it was Mark’s relationship with her. This was not just due to her initial suspicions either, but also due in part to one of her earliest conversations alone with Lee.

“Hi, Dr. Lewis,” Lee greeted warmly as she fell into step with Susan as she walked down the hall to her next patient. “Do you mind if I call you Susan?”

Despite _very_ much wanting to say yes, Susan shook her head. 

“Great,” Lee replied with a smile. “You know, I was thinking that I’ve gotten the chance to talk with Kerry Weaver and Mark Greene, but I haven’t really gotten the chance to talk with you much since I started.”

_Perhaps because every time I see you I throw up a little in my mouth and then walk in the opposite direction._

“Yeah, I guess not,” Susan said in a flat voice, but one much colder than that of her usual sarcasm.

“So, tell me about yourself.”

“Well, I’m a Scorpio, I watch more _HGTV_ than is probably good for me, and I’m married with two kids,” Susan informed her in a (falsely) chipper voice. 

Lee just chuckled. 

“I meant _professionally._ As in, where did you go to med school, where did you do your residency… That sort of stuff.”

“Oh. Well, here,” Susan answered shortly. “I went to med school at the University and I’ve been here ever since. Intern, resident, Chief Resident, Attending.”

“I see. It makes sense then as to why you get along so well with your fellow Attendings,” Lee remarked. “You’ve been around awhile.”

“Yeah. Though one is my best friend and one is my spouse, so if I _didn’t_ get along with them, neither of those things would be true.”

Lee slowed to a halt and, against her will, Susan slowed too.

“So, there _is_ something going on between you and Mark Greene.”

“What? No,” Susan said, taken aback. “He's’ the best friend.”

Lee frowned in confusion.

“But the only other Attending I can think of is Kerry Weaver…”

“Yeah. And she’s my spouse.”

Lee blinked for a second and then grinned in pleasant surprise. 

“Oh. _Oh._ Well, good. Power to you,” she said sincerely. “You know, my roommate in college was a lesbian.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m not a lesbian; Kerry is. I’m bisexual.” At the look on Lee’s face, Susan gave her a tired (and frustrated) smile and said, “But don’t worry. I’m a very _monogamous_ bisexual.”

“I didn’t say I was worried.”

“No, but the look on your face did.

For a moment, they both observed each other closely. But then Lee just held up her hands. 

“My apologies. I didn’t know I was making a face.” She lowered her hands. “So, since there’s nothing going on between you and Mark, you wouldn’t mind if he and I went out some time?”

Her reassurance that it was no problem and they should have fun bothered Susan for the rest of the day, not just because of what she was encouraging but because she wasn’t sure when she’d gotten to be such a convincing liar. 

It was the encouragement and not the lying that would prove more bothersome to Susan over time, though, and soon she found herself cornering Mark in the hallway, a look of seriousness on her face and in her tone.

“Okay. I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be very honest with me. Okay, Mark?”

“Yeah, of course. What’s wrong?”

Susan inhaled deeply. 

“Do you have a thing for blonde women?” she asked, scanning his face for an answer before he gave one. “Because I understand why you would be into me because, frankly, I’m a catch. But _her?_ _Really?_ Come on, Mark. You can’t really be into her.”

Mark’s look of concern evaporated immediately and was immediately replaced with annoyance.

“No, I don’t have a thing for blonde women. And I think Amanda is very nice,” he said rolling his eyes. “And can we go back for a second? Did you just refer to yourself as a catch?”

“Yeah. Because I am one.” Then, Susan heaved a sigh, raising her hands in concession. “Okay. Are you really into her? Because if you are, I’ll stop.”

Mark turned and started down the trauma room hallway, Susan following at pace with him.

“We’ve gone on a couple dates,” he said slowly, “and she’s very nice…”

 _“But…_ ” Susan let out a huff. “Oh, come on, Mark. You know there was going to be a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.”

“She’s… She’s just looking for a lot more than I am right now,” Mark informed her as they turned the corner. 

He watched Susan nod out of the corner of his eye. 

“Okay. So, you’re looking for a blonde woman who’s not interested in commitment right now,” Susan said, thinking out loud. Then, she stopped suddenly and threw out a hand to stop Mark as well. “You know who’s newly single and told me she’s definitely not interested in anything serious right now? Elizabeth Corday.”

“Elizabeth?” Mark asked, his brow furrowing. 

“Mm-hmm,” Susan said, pumping her eyebrows for emphasis. “It's perfect. She’s nice, she’s smart, and she’s hot as hell. And she’s blonde. Come on. What’s not to like?”

“Are you sure you’re not projecting there, Susan?”

Susan’s mouth worked wordlessly for a second. Then, she closed it and closed her eyes. 

“That is neither here nor there,” she said, before immediately turning and continuing down the hall towards Admit. 

Mark smirked slightly at the little bit of pink that rose in Susan’s cheeks. But there was more than that on his mind. 

“What is it about Amanda that you don’t like exactly?”

Susan thought for a moment and then shrugged. 

“I don’t know. She just… She just rubs me the wrong way.”

“I’ll remind you that Kerry didn’t rub you the right way when she first started.”

Susan clenched her fists and bit her lip in a desperate effort to keep the joke from coming out.

“You have no _idea_ how much it pains me that we’re at work and I cannot reply to that the way I want to,” she groaned. But after a moment of mourning the joke potential, she shook her head. “That was different, though. That was a… a personality conflict, you know? Like a ‘There’s only room in this ER for one bitch, and I’ve already got the job locked down’ sort of thing.”

At this, Mark looked at her.

“I don’t think you’re a bitch,” he said in what he hoped was a comforting tone.

“Really? You’re sweet. You’re _wrong_. But you’re sweet,” Susan said with a smile. But then her smile faded. “It’s not like that with Lee. She just… She just feels like she’s hiding something. I don’t know what, but there’s _something.”_

“And, again, I’ll remind you that _Kerry_ was hiding something when she first started,” Mark said, pausing near the elevator and punching the button. 

Susan looked at him in confusion for a moment, before rolling her eyes and shaking her head. 

“That doesn’t count, Mark. She didn’t know she was gay when she first got here.”

“No,” Mark replied. “I meant _Annie.”_

Susan considered this for a second and, sensing this was not an argument she was going to win, she gave in. 

“Alright, fine.” Then, she raised a finger at Mark as he stepped into the elevator. “But if we find out that she has a collection of anatomically correct trophies in her closet, I _will_ say I told you so.”

But as the New Year came and went and January changed to February, the only sign supporting Susan’s perspective came in the form of a note Jerry found that convinced him Lee was stalking Mark. And though Susan appreciated the support in whatever form it came, seeing as _Jerry_ was the only one she’d managed to get on her side, it didn’t exactly help her cause with any of the other staff. 

At least until a building collapse resulted in all hands not currently working in the newly-opened Pediatric Trauma Center on deck.

(Though Doug had initially been thrilled that Anspaugh didn’t just support but wanted to expand his idea for pediatric emergency services, managing the PTC was a much bigger job than he’d anticipated, and had at one point even resulted in a heartfelt apology to one Kerry Weaver for ever making her life difficult when it came to paperwork and administration.)

As the hectic intensity that accompanied every mass casualty incident began to die down, there was a suspicious lack of Attendings. 

“Has anyone seen Mark?” Kerry asked, once again glancing around Admit in the hopes of seeing the tall, bald man. “He took his patient up to Radiology almost an hour ago. He should be back by now.”

“Actually, Dr. Weaver,” Yosh said hesitantly. “Radiology just phoned down. Dr. Greene and his patient are locked in one of the MRI chambers upstairs. Apparently, Dr. Lee locked them inside and then went on some rant about not loving her enough to trust her… and then she fled the scene.”

Susan, who had walked back behind the time just in time to hear Yosh’s statement lit up with such fervor she almost dropped the pile of charts in her hand. 

“She did _what?!”_

As Yosh, Kerry, and several others shot her looks at the sound of her glee, Susan quickly sobered.

“I mean, is he okay?”

Yosh shrugged. 

“I think so. They’re still trying to get them out.”

Susan nodded and inhaled deeply. 

“I’ll save my celebration until we’re sure he’s okay,” she reassured everyone. But then she set the charts down on the counter and raised a finger at all of them. “But I _will_ be celebrating.”

Kerry just rolled her eyes and turned to Yosh.

“Page security up there if they haven’t gone up already. And the police too,” Kerry instructed. “And someone find me the master locker key.”

Yosh nodded and set to his task. Susan stepped closer to Kerry, her eager grin returning.

“Why?” Susan asked in an excited whisper. “Do you think she’s hiding something in it?”

“Will you cut that out?” Kerry snapped. “Your best friend is trapped in an MRI chamber and our Chief of Emergency Services just absconded with herself.”

“Yeah? And?”

Kerry’s expression hardened.

“I want my binders back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to start off by thanking everybodyknows-everybodydies for inspiring this chapter waaaaaay back in July of last year. In the chapter of "uc" when Anspaugh tells Kerry there will have to be a national search for the new ER Chief, she out in her comment that she was very interested to know how Amanda Lee factored in, and said that she pictured Susan saying "...she gives me the heebie-jeebies." I've thought about that ever since, and though Lee didn't feature in that AU, I realized that if Kerry did _not_ pursue the Chief position in this one, it meant I got to play with that idea. And not just does Susan get the heebie-jeebies, but it gave me the opportunity to write some funny-serious wives stuff and some best friend banter. And, of course, have Susan push Mark away from Lee towards Lizzie.
> 
> Sidenote: I have this headcanon that, once Mark agrees, Susan offers to play wingman with Elizabeth. But it backfires when Susan says something along the lines of "This is a long-winded way to ask if you're single" to which Lizzie smirks and replies "I am, but I was under the impression that you _weren't."_ And before Susan can explain that's not what she meant, Lizzie winks at her and Susan flushes and giggles and basically becomes completely useless for a solid two minutes. It's only after Lizzie walks away that Susan finally blinks herself back to reality and asks what just happened, to which Mark shakes his head and walks away. 
> 
> I'm really flying through the chapters this, but it's because most of them have fully-formed in my head for weeks, so it's exciting to finally get the chance to put them to paper (or, in this case, Google Doc). 
> 
> Hope you're having a good day so far! Until next time.


	28. Leave It To Weaver

Mark felt the morning was hard enough on its own _without_ Susan rushing to poke him repeatedly on the arm while he stepped outside for a breath of fresh air.

“You know that hurts, right?” Mark asked when he swatted her hands away. “Like you know you’re not being gentle?”

Susan ignored this and just fixed him with the look of frustration she’d been wearing since she’d accompanied a patient from the coffee shop upstairs to Surgery.

“Okay, so you know I told you that I thought Anspaugh was delaying the national search for a new Chief of Emergency Services so Kerry had the chance to get back into the swing of things before they moved forward?”

“Yeah,” Mark said, nodding. “And they said they’re going to start soon, right?”

“Apparently not,” Susan informed him, smiling though her jaw was clenched. “Because apparently _Anspaugh_ is now stepping down, so they have to find a new Chief of Staff first before they can find a new Chief of Emergency Services. And guess who they’re considering?”

“Bill,” Mark replied. “Wait, no… Hillary.”

 _“Romano,”_ Susan said, seething. “After all the work we did last year to nail his ass on those sexual harassment charges, they’re just going to consider him for the top job in the hospital.”

“You know, strictly speaking, you probably shouldn’t say things like ‘nail his ass’ when talking about sexual harassment.”

“Shut up, Mark.” Susan inhaled deeply through her nose. “I’m not going to let that short bald bastard be my boss. I’m just not.”

“What do you have against bald men, Susan?”

“I don’t have anything against bald men, ya bald man,” Susan said, poking him again. “I have something against _Romano…_ Which is why I went to Anspaugh and insisted that the ER be part of the conversation. Because the department heads are meeting _today._ And since we don’t officially have one, I managed to convince them to let all three of us go. So, that’ll be this afternoon when Kerry gets in.”

Mark nodded. 

“Where is she this morning?” he asked, stretching before turning back for the Ambulance Bay doors.

“It’s Career Day today, so she is with Mr. Petersen’s Third Grade Class,” Susan informed him with a smile. “Telling them all about how _exciting_ it is to be a doctor.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah.”

“Annie didn’t ask you?” Mark asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Actually, she did. She asked Michael and I both if it was okay with us if she asked _Momma_ to do it. She’s a sweetheart,” Susan explained. Then, she sighed “And besides... As far as the school is concerned, Adam and I are just ‘Additional Emergency Contacts.’”

Mark gave a knowing nod as a small flare of anger erupted inside him as he remembered when he found out Jen had done that on Rachel’s soccer forms the year before even though she was going to be staying with him.

“I read a book recently on blended families. You know, families where the parents are divorced and then get remarried,” Susan said as they stepped back inside the ER. “And all I learned was that they don’t even have this stuff figured out for _straight_ people yet, let alone do they have a chapter titled ‘I Have a New Daddy, but He Doesn’t Live With My Mom.’”

But no how much joy Susan derived from seeing Mark’s face at her comment that half the book didn’t really apply to them because, in their house, power struggles between ‘new wife’ and ‘ex-wife’ usually ended in sex between two, it did nothing to lessen her silent fury as she, Kerry, and Mark sat around the conference room table listening to all the other departments agree with allowing Romano to be the new Chief of Staff.

“Well, this is going terribly,” she muttered, leaning forward slightly so only Kerry could hear her.

“Mm-hmm.” Kerry sighed. “We should probably just concede.”

“Concede?” Susan asked incredulously. “You mean _give up?”_

“Read the room, Susan,” Kerry hissed out of the corner of her mouth. “It’s not going to happen.”

Susan looked at her in disbelief for a moment before sitting back against the chair. 

They hadn’t gotten around to hearing the ER’s opinion, but time was quickly running out. She had to figure out something or else they were going to be the only dissenting voice in a sea of affirmation. 

Susan glanced around desperately, looking for something, _anything,_ that would save them from having Robert Romano as their new Chief of Staff. But just as she was going to give up herself, the thought came to her. 

Now, admittedly, it was a _stretch._ Possibly even edging on ridiculous. And if it failed, she would surely pay in more ways than one. But if it _worked…_

Susan sat up. 

“Dr. Anspaugh?”

“Yes, Dr. Lewis?” Anspaugh said, looking from the head of some other department Susan didn’t know (Anesthesiology?) to her.

“Would the hospital be willing to consider an alternate candidate for Chief of Staff?” she said slowly, well aware that all eyes were on her. 

“Well, of course.” Anspaugh glanced at her over the rim of his glasses. “Who do you have in mind?

“Well, if the hospital is interested in hiring from within…”Susan took a deep breath. “Might I suggest… Kerry?”

_“What?”_

Kerry turned to look at her with so much force that she scooted her chair back. And then, upon realizing the outburst, quickly turned back to the group. 

“I didn’t not ask her to say that,” she assured them quickly, before turning back to Susan and hissing, _“What are you doing?”_

To which Susan hissed back, _“Keeping Romano from the job.”_

Romano looked at them for a second and then let out a scoff. 

“Kerry can’t be the Chief of Staff,” he said, motioning to her. “She’s never even been the Chief of Emergency Services.”

“And nowhere does it say in the job description that that’s a requirement,” Susan responded firmly. 

“Hang on,” one of the other department heads said, narrowing his eyes. “Kerry Weaver _isn’t_ the Chief of Emergency Services?” 

“Not officially,” Susan informed him. “She has held the Acting and Interim positions for pretty much the entire time since David Morgenstern had his heart attack, but she did not participate in the national search last year because she’d recently experienced a loss in the family and chose to step back and take care of herself and her family during that time.”

The fact that Kerry was not actually in charge of the Emergency Department was apparently news to most of the men (and two women) sitting around the table. 

“Though, anyone who has been in the ER could tell you,” Susan continued at their looks of surprise, “that she’s been running the department behind-the-scenes since… Well, pretty much since the day she got here.”

“That’s true,” Mark chimed in. 

There was a bit of murmuring at the information, which Romano took as an opportunity to lean forward towards Anspaugh. 

“Donald, you’re not actually considering this,” Romano said with a smile and a(n admittedly nervous) chuckle.

“Hush, Robert,” Anspaugh ordered. “I, for one, would like to hear Dr. Lewis make her case.”

As Anspaugh indicated Susan to go on, Kerry just sat there wide-eyed, interested in hearing what Susan had to say just as much as everyone else did.

Susan, on the other hand, felt encouraged by Anspaugh’s response (and Romano’s fear) and sat up straighter in her chair. 

“Well, I mean, the biggest case in Dr. Weaver’s favor has to be the ER budget,” she began in a much more confident voice than before. “The department has come in at or under budget every quarter for almost two years, which is very impressive considering how we’re funded. And it’s _doubly_ impressive given that we’ve been able to do that without firing or cutting the pay of a single staff member _or_ seeing a huge drop in our census. And that has been entirely due to Dr. Weaver’s stewardship.”

Susan paused to give those gathered a second to take this in before continuing on.

“And, I’ll remind you, when the _hospital_ chose us a new Chief of Emergency Services, she turned out to be a _literal fraud_ ,” Susan said, emphasizing the last two words. “And the _only_ reason the bottom didn’t fall out from beneath the department is because Dr. Weaver was holding it up. And because, even though we’d transitioned leadership, the staff were still operating under the ER’s Strategic Plan.”

“The ER has its own strategic plan?” Steve Flint, Head of Radiology, asked, looking from the ER Attendings to Anspaugh. “Donald, you didn’t say we could budget for that.”

“Oh, we didn’t hire an outside consultant, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Susan cut in. “It was an _intradepartmental_ strategic plan. Led by Dr. Weaver, but with input from every level of ER staff. And done concurrently with the strategic planning of The County General Free Clinic for the Uninsured of Cook County, which _seriously_ needs a shorter name, but that’s not what we’re discussing right now.”

At more impressed murmurs, Romano clenched his jaw even tighter. 

“Okay, can I just say,” he said loudly, sitting forward against the table, “that Kerry Weaver is gay, and Susan Lewis is her gay girlfriend.”

 _“Bi_ girlfriend,” Susan corrected sternly. “And that’s not a secret.”

“And even if it was, who cares? They’ve got a strategic plan!” Steve Flint added emphatically before sitting back in his seat and crossing his arms before muttering, “I want a strategic plan.”

“How do we even know this strategic plan of theirs even exists, huh?” Romano asked all the other department heads. 

“Well, _that_ I can prove right now. Because I can guarantee you that all three of us have a copy of it on our person right now,” Susan said with a smile in his direction as she indicated to Mark and Kerry. Then, assuming her haughtiest tone (read: her Kerry voice), she said, “Because all Attendings are required to have a copy of it on their person at all times while on shift. Per Dr. Weaver’s order.”

And, to prove her point, Susan reached in the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out her (laminated) copy of the _The County General Emergency Department Strategic Plan 1998-2002_ “cheat sheet,” which she held up and then set on the table. Mark followed suit, pulling his (unlaminated and therefore a little bit more dog-eared) copy of the cheat sheet out and tossing it on the table as well.

All eyes fell on Kerry, who had been very quiet the entire time Susan talked out of sheer surprise. She looked at the two copies of the plan on the table, and then exhaled as she too reached in her lab coat pocket and pulled out her (spiral-bound miniature copy of the full) strategic plan and set it on the table along with the others. 

Susan helped pass the cheat sheets and Kerry’s copy of the strategic plan around the table. The impressed murmuring grew in intensity as the other department heads looked them over. 

“This is very impressive,” Janet Coburn remarked as she looked at Susan’s cheat sheet.

“You know, Donald,” Carl DeRaad, Head of Psychiatry, said as he glanced up from Mark’s copy, “the hospital is due for a new strategic plan next year. This kind of experience would be very valuable.”

“I daresay it would,” Anspaugh remarked as he skimmed through Kerry’s copy of the full plan.

Then, he passed it back towards Kerry. The other department heads who hadn’t had their chance to take a look at the cheat sheets did so, and then passed them back to their respective owners.

“Now, to Dr. Romano’s credit, he _does_ have an impressive record of his own…” Susan said, gathering everyone’s attention one more time. And as they exchanged confused glances, Susan looked directly at Romano and smirked, finishing, “... With HR.”

The others sat forward, listening intently, while Susan enjoyed the way a vein had started to pulse in Romano’s head. Then, she looked around at everyone once more.

“Last year, a third-party ombudsperson for the hospital substantiated four, possibly even _five_ instances of sexual harassment by Dr. Romano against other members of hospital staff.” She looked back at Romano and chanced a wink. “They’re all on publicly available record down in Human Resources.”

Susan sat back to indicate she was finished.

There was another instance of murmuring before all eyes fell back on Anspaugh, who laced his fingers together in front of him.

“Well, does anyone have any issue with exploring Dr. Weaver as another candidate for Chief of Staff?” Several shook their heads, but Anspaugh was distracted by movement he caught out of the corner of his eye. “Put your hand down, Robert.”

When no one else expressed any dissent, Anspaugh clapped his hands together. 

“Alright, then. Kerry, Robert - you two stay behind. The rest of you are dismissed.”

Immediately, there was the sound of chairs moving and chatter rising as people began to leave. Susan used this to her advantage to whisper, _“You can thank me later”_ to a speechless Kerry before taking her leave. 

Once everyone but Kerry, Romano, and Anspaugh had dispersed, Anspaugh caught sight of the look of shock on Kerry’s face and frowned in concern. 

(As though Kerry did not have a problem with someone publicly celebrating her accomplishments, something like being recommended to run the hospital was something she’d rather have happen on _her_ terms. Or, at least, with a fair bit of warning.)

“You were awfully quiet just now, Kerry,” he said, his brow furrowing. “You _are_ interested in the position, yes?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Donald,” Romano scoffed. “You’ve _met_ her. Why bother even asking?”

Kerry took an additional second to gather the million thoughts bouncing around her head.

“Well, to Dr. Romano’s point,” she said slowly, “I have never officially held the position of Chief of Emergency Services. And, therefore, don’t have the same formal leadership experience on my resume that he or other candidates would have.”

Anspaugh narrowed his eyes slightly at her words, but Romano perked up in pleasant surprise. 

“On second thought, thank you for asking.”

_“However…”_

Kerry’s eyes snapped to Romano as she spoke the word, which wiped the grin from his face. Then, she closed them for a brief moment and took a deep breath before looking up at Anspaugh. 

“Sir,” she said in a less fierce tone, “if you truly thought I was a competitive candidate, I would absolutely submit my CV for consideration. And, if I was offered an interview, I would interview.”

Anspaugh considered her words carefully for a moment.

“Wednesday. 9 am. In my office,” he stated. “Would that work for you?”

“Of-of course,” Kerry replied, fighting to keep her mouth from falling open. “Thank you, sir.”

“Wonderful.” He nodded once at Kerry before turning on Romano and raising a finger at him. “I want to see _you_ in my office in ten minutes. It seems you left some things off of _your_ CV.”

And, with that, Anspaugh left for his office. The two that remained were both so floored by what had just taken place that several minutes passed before either moved an inch.

Kerry was just about to reach for her crutch when she heard slow clapping. 

“That was… Well, that was just simply spectacular, Kerry,” Romano said, shaking his head. 

“What are you talking about, Robert?” Kerry asked, scowling as she threaded her arm through her crutch and stood up. 

“I mean all of it,” Romano said, gesturing to the now-empty table. “The planning, the execution, the _props._ And, of course, you sitting there pretending to be surprised that Susan was saying all that stuff, like you didn’t tell her to. I mean that alone deserves an Oscar nomination.”

“I assure you I had no idea she was going to do that,” Kerry informed him tersely. “The only reason we even came up here was to make sure you didn’t get the job.”

“And that _you_ did,” Romano finished, crossing his arms.

“No,” Kerry said firmly as she stepped around the table. “I promise you that’s not why we came.”

Romano just looked at her for a moment. She was about to turn for the door when he raised an eyebrow. 

“You swear?” 

Kerry considered just shooting him a look and then walking away, but instead, she stepped forward to look him in the eye. 

“I swear. I did not know she was going to do that.”

Romano’s eyes narrowed very slightly. 

“On something that matters.”

Kerry felt her jaw clench. 

She shouldn’t play his game, she thought. But if she _didn’t,_ he was surely to spread rumors. 

“I swear on my mother’s grave,” she said in a low, steady voice, “I did not know Susan was going to do that. That was not why we came.”

For a long moment, they stared each other down. But right as Kerry was sure he was convinced, he gave an emphatic shrug. 

“Well, I didn’t know your mother and I don’t know your relationship with her,” he said in a suddenly casual (and callous) voice. “So, for all I know, you could be spitting on her right now.”

The ache of grief, which slowly lessened with each passing day to the point where it was now an infrequent - yet still powerful - throb, flared in her chest. But instead of causing a breakdown, this throb caused Kerry to lose all of her carefully-curated professionalism in a moment of rage.

“Listen here, you little shit,” she hissed, stepping closer to Romano so they were nearly nose-to-nose. “I would gladly give you that job in an _instant_ if it meant that I got my mother back for ten seconds. But that’s not going to happen. She’s gone and she’s not coming back, so the only thing I can do is to carry on her legacy, and do in the world that which I think she would want. 

“And I think that she would think that men like _you,_ that walk around every place like they own it, harassing people _just because they can…_ I think that she would say that men like you should never even get _close_ to jobs like that.”

She paused for a brief second to breathe, and took great pleasure in the little bit of fear in Romano’s eyes. 

“I don’t care if I get the job,” she said much more candidly than she (or anyone) would have thought. “I don’t care who does. So long as it isn’t _you._

“Because as long as it’s not _you,_ or anyone like you… Then, I think my mother would be happy.”

It felt a bit strange to Elizabeth that Susan had gone to such lengths to celebrate before they even knew if there was anything _to_ celebrate, but that didn’t stop her from getting some more chips and fruit salad from the spread on the counter and pouring herself another glass of punch.

She turned back towards the sofa where she’d been chatting with Carter and Kerry’s ex-husband Michael about the hell that were surgical internships. But as she decided if she wanted to rejoin them or join Susan, Mark, and Michael’s partner Adam at the table to discuss the American public school system, she spotted a third conversation that intrigued her more. 

Setting her plate down on a side table, she took a seat on the floor next to Annie and Suzie, who were playing _Guess Who?_

“Ladies,” she said seriously, looking between the two. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Is the question ‘Why do we have stuffed animals on our heads?’” Annie asked brightly.

Elizabeth glanced between Rex the dog, who was stationed on Annie’s head, and Pip Pop the bunny, who was firmly stationed on Suzie’s head. 

(They’d recently learned that ‘Pip Pop’ had apparently been the name of the bunny since Mildred had given it to her, but no one realized that Suzie’s saying that was her calling it by _name_ and not just her having fun by making weird sounds.)

“That is exactly it,” Elizabeth confirmed. 

“Well, there’s a _lot_ of reasons,” Annie began, pushing her new glasses up higher on her nose.

“...But right now, it’s for good luck!” Suzie finished happily. 

Elizabeth’s mouth worked wordlessly for a moment as she processed this new information. 

“Well… perfect. It’s a perfect time for good luck,” she said at long last. She gave them a double thumbs up. “Keep at it.”

Both girls nodded sincerely. They were clearly skilled at this, as neither dog nor bunny moved an inch. 

Elizabeth stood up from the floor and picked up her plate before muttering to herself, “That didn’t help me at all.”

She’d no sooner resumed her seat on the sofa than that Suzie heard the sound of keys in the door and looked up. And, seeing the outline of Kerry against the growing blue of the night, she hopped to her feet.

“She’s here! She’s here!”

The others all looked up. Those at the dining room table rushed into the living room, most of them standing as the empty couch faced opposite the door.

Kerry pushed open the door and, upon seeing the gathered group, was visibly taken aback. 

“What are you all doing here?” Then, rolling her eyes, she motioned to Susan, Suzie, and Annie. “I know why _you three_ are here… And not that I’m not happy to see the rest of you, but what are you doing here?”

“We came to hear the news,” Michael said, grinning. “Susan said you were going to find out today.”

“I will just say that some of us were asked here specifically to support Susan in her supporting of you,” Mark said, raising a hand from where he’d taken the last seat on the couch next to Elizabeth. “In other words, we were coerced.”

Kerry glanced at Susan, who just shrugged.

“I got a lot of shit on a lot of people.”

_“Mommy!”_

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Susan apologized quickly. “I’ve got a lot of _poop_ on a lot of people.”

She looked at the girls. 

“Better?”

Kerry smiled slightly at the way both girls narrowed their eyes as they nodded and took off her shoes. 

“So, how’d it go?” Carter asked. 

“Well, this was interview number four. It went pretty much the same as all the rest, but was just with different people,” Kerry said. “We had a very long conversation about healthcare and where we think healthcare’s going. Then, we had a very long conversation about the _hospital_ and where we think the _hospital_ is going and how we can make those two things align best. Then, I went downstairs and worked in the ER for a little while before they paged me back up to tell me they had made a decision.”

“What’d they decide?” Suzie asked eagerly, Pip Pop’s ears flapping as she bounced up and down on her toes.

An unspoken - but collective - disappointment filled the room as Kerry exhaled deeply. 

“They decided…” she began slowly. “...That they want to hire a new ER Attending.”

Those gathered exchanged looks of confusion at the vague statement. All but Susan, who chanced a cautious smile.

“Because _you_ got the job?” 

Kerry’s face broke into a wide (and only a _little_ bit smug) grin. 

“Because I got the job.”

Everyone erupted in cheers and applause. 

“Does this mean we get to have cake now?” Annie asked excitedly, looking from Kerry to Susan.

“Cake?” Kerry asked, confused. “What do you mean ‘cake?’”

“Mommy knew you were going to get the job, so she bought cake,” Annie informed her. “And now that it’s _official,_ we can _eat_ the cake!”

“Annie, you haven’t even hugged me yet,” Kerry said, rolling her eyes. 

Annie let out a dramatic sigh and then threw her arms around her mother. And, as predicted, the moment she was released, she opened her mouth, to which Kerry just raised a warning finger and said, _“Don’t.”_

The others all made their way forward individually for hugs and to offer their congratulations. 

Susan brought up the rear, choosing to express _her_ congratulations through a deep kiss. 

“You know how I said you could thank me later?” she whispered as they pulled out of the kiss. “Well, tonight is later.”

Kerry’s face, already considerably pink from the genuine congratulations from friends and family, grew a deeper shade of red. 

“Alright, fine,” she conceded. “But you have to promise you will never, ever, _ever_ do that to me in a meeting ever again.”

“I don’t have to,” Susan pointed out, smiling broadly. “You just skipped an entire step on the Master Plan thanks to me.”

“The Master Plan?” 

They turned to see Mark looking at them both, his brow furrowed in confusion. 

“Yeah,” Susan said, nodding. “Kerry’s Master Plan to take over the hospital.”

This only served to make Mark look even _more_ confused. 

“You mean you actually have one?”

Kerry shrugged.

“Are you actually surprised?” Susan asked, narrowing her eyes. 

Mark considered this for a moment, and then gave a shrug of his own.

“I guess not,” he admitted. “I just never thought you would admit it.”

Kerry’s smile at the comment turned into a smirk as she turned back to Susan.

“It’s funny you should bring up the Master Plan, actually,” she said slowly. “Do you remember it in its entirety?”

Susan nodded, though the expression on her face conveyed how disconcerted she was that Kerry would even ask.

“Of course. It’s your Master Plan to take over the hospital and install women in every position of-” Susan gasped loudly. “Oh _no.”_

Kerry’s smirk grew at her reaction.

“ _Oh yes.”_

“Uh-uh. No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Susan said, shaking her head quickly. “I don’t want it. Give it to him.”

She pointed at Mark.

 _“He_ doesn’t want it,” Kerry replied. “And _he_ doesn’t fit the Master Plan.”

“Well, then you need to find someone else,” Susan shot back. “Because I don’t want it.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Mark asked, voicing the question on everyone’s mind.

Kerry turned to face the group at large with a satisfied smile on her face.

“I want Susan to be the new Chief of Emergency Services-”

“And Susan does _not_ want to be the new Chief of Emergency Services,” Susan finished firmly.

“Wait… Mommy got a new job _too?”_ Annie asked. She perked up. “Does that mean we get _two_ pieces of cake?”

“No, Mommy did _not_ get a new job,” Susan corrected Annie. “Mommy does not _want_ the new job.”

“Will you at least be the _Acting_ Chief of Emergency Services? Interim? Just until we hold the national search.”

Susan drew in a deep breath and then sighed. 

“Alright, _fine._ I’ll be the Acting Chief until the national search.” But then she raised a finger at Kerry. “But I will not be participating in the national search.”

“Why _not?”_ Kerry implored. “I’ve already done most of the hard work. You just need to sign stuff.”

“I don’t want to be the Chief of Emergency Services,” Susan repeated, her conviction resolute. “And, even if I wanted to be, I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Kerry asked with a (bemused) look of exasperation.

But Susan just crossed her arms. 

“I can’t.”

“And why can’t you?”

“Because,” Susan said, turning up her nose. “While you were off having your second, third, and fourth interviews, you missed a very important doctor’s appointment.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t miss any-”

Like Susan had realized Kerry’s meaning behind reciting the Master Plan, Kerry suddenly understood the implication in Susan’s words. 

“Really?”

“Mm-hmm.”

 _“Really?”_ Kerry repeated, an almost giddy smile on her face.

“Wait, what are you talking about?” Annie asked, frowning as she looked between her mothers. 

“Do you remember that _thing_ that Mommy and Momma said we were going to try and do?” Susan asked.

Suzie and Annie exchanged glances for a second, before Annie figured it out.

“It _worked?”_

“It worked,” Susan confirmed, nodding. 

Annie lit up and then quickly filled Suzie in on what the ‘thing’ was, leading her to light up as well. But while their joyous excitement grew, the others looked on in confusion.

“Okay, I’m lost again,” Mark commented. 

“I think I might know what it’s about…” Carter said slowly. Then, he raised his hand. “I have a question.”

Kerry, who had taken her turn to kiss Susan deeply, noticed him out of the corner of her eye. As she pulled away from Susan, she looked at him, still grinning. 

“Yes, Carter?” 

“Does this have anything to do with why I got evicted?”

“Yes, it does.”

Carter nodded, and then leaned back to look at the others. 

“Susan’s pregnant.”

There was another round of cheers. 

“Yep. Susan’s pregnant. And it’s _way_ too early to tell any of you.” Susan tapped Kerry on the arm with the back of her hand and motioned to the others. “See what you made me do.”

Annie was beside herself. 

“Okay. Does this mean we get _three pieces of cake?”_

“What is it with you and cake?” Kerry said, putting her hand down on the top of Annie’s head. “One piece of cake. It’s always one piece of cake.”

“But there’s three things to celebrate.”

“And you’ll celebrate them with _one_ piece of cake.”

Kerry moved her hand so she could bend down and kiss Annie on the forehead. When she pulled away, the almost-nine-year-old looked slightly pleading. 

“Can it at least be the _size_ of three pieces of cake?” At the look on Kerry’s face, Annie’s shoulders drooped. But only for a second as Annie remembered the other very exciting non-cake related thing. “Mommy’s pregnant! Which means I’m gonna have a new baby sister!”

But at the awe and excitement in Annie’s voice, her current baby sister shot her a look. 

“You already _have_ a little sister, Annie,” Suzie sneered.

“I said a _baby sister,_ Suzie,” Annie sneered back. “You’re not a baby anymore.”

A potential sisterly fistfight was avoided as Annie reminded Suzie that she _too_ was going to have a new baby sister and that that meant she would not longer have to _be_ the baby sister (which Suzie had specified was the reason she’d want her moms to have a new baby when Susan had asked the girls’ opinion on it).

“Now, girls,” Susan said, chuckling at their shared excitement, “we’re not gonna find out the gender of the baby until it’s born. Which means it might not be a little sister.”

The girls’ excitement quieted down as they considered Susan’s statement. 

“Yeah,” Annie said before a look of greatest enthusiasm crossed her face. “It could be _two_ little sisters.”

“No. _No._ That’s not what I meant,” Susan replied quickly. “I meant that it could be a little _brother.”_

Both Annie and Suzie looked up at her for a moment, utterly bewildered by the very thought, before they looked at each other once more. 

Then, in perfect unison, they both looked back up at her, shook their heads, and said, “It’s not gonna be.”

“You don’t know that,” Susan insisted.

But Suzie just nodded sincerely. 

“We know that.”

“Okay,” Susan said, raising her hands defensively. “But if come February it turns out to be a little brother, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, to be fair, I don't know if Kerry would be considered qualified enough to become Chief of Staff without first being Chief of Emergency Services. But, seeing as Romano would never even be in the room while the conversation about his becoming Chief of Staff in real life, we're just going to remember that this is fiction and suspend our disbelief.
> 
> I _do_ think that Anspaugh's support of Kerry as ER Chief would not necessarily go away. Even though she turned down going for the position, he knew her reasoning why and would understand that. So, when faced with promoting the Chief of Surgery with a substantiated history of harassment (because, like in "uc" an out Kerry would never let him get away with blasting Maggie Doyle for being a lesbian in her surgical review) or the Acting Chief of Emergency Services who does things like strategic plan for the ER without being asked to, I think it would be a fairly easy choice.
> 
> In a way, it's sort of a play on Kerry's promotion in Season 9, but without mental distress caused by helicopter incidents or trying to hide a sleazy politician's affair. We _are_ going all the way through Season 9 in this AU, though, so both incidences will be addressed (read:compellingly rewritten while remaining true to character, AU, and canon as necessary) later on. There are two very specific reasons (neither of which are those two plot lines) we will be going through Season 9 in this one. Extra credit to anyone who can guess what those two things are. Your only hints are "Something that happens in early Season 9" and "Season 9 ends in 2003." Good luck.
> 
> Regarding Susan's pregnancy, I went back and forth for weeks on whether or not to include it in this AU. Did I want it just to be Annie and Suzie or did Iwant them to each have a child of their own that they had prior to their relationship and one that they raised fully together? It bothered me off and on for a long time, but I eventually just settled on 'Why limit them to two kids when they could have _three_ kids? Or, in other words, this AU is very self-indulgent and I just really like [redcated baby's name that you could all probably guess but I won't actually say yet].
> 
> I will say that, once I made the decision for them to have three kids in this one, a lot of stuff for the rest of the story started to fill itself in. Which, of course, makes me very excited for things to come. We're into Season 6 now! And there's still so much exciting stuff to come, even just this season: New jobs, babies, Valentine's Day... And I'll just warn you now, if you think you know what's going to happen this time, just you wait :)
> 
> hope you guys are having as good a time reading this as I am having writing it. Thank you so much for all your comments and kudos. I reread the email notifications for comments several times a day. They really help keep me going and it is such a joy to read your reactions and thoughts and opinions.
> 
> Until next time.


	29. HBIC

_“Mommyyyy,”_ Annie whined. “Why are you still hugging me?”

“Because, honey,” Susan said as she squeezed Annie tighter to her, “you’re just such a nice huggable size. Like your mom.”

Annie groaned, but Susan could tell even hugging her from behind that she was smiling.

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Dave Malucci remarked as he returned to the desk. “Is that your daughter, Dr. Lewis?”

“Of course,” Susan replied flatly. “Can’t you see the family resemblance?”

Susan gestured a circle around Annie’s face with her finger. Annie gave Dave a big cheesy grin. 

But when the new resident’s expression grew confused, Susan rolled her eyes. 

“I’m _kidding,_ Dave,” Susan said, before adding, “About the family resemblance, at least. She _is_ my daughter. One of two.”

“Three!”

 _“You don’t know that,”_ Susan said quickly, poking Annie in the shoulder. 

“Oh. So, she’s adopted?” Dave asked slowly. 

“Well… No. Not officially,” Susan said with a noncommittal shrug. “She’s my spouse’s daughter. And if you look closely, you _can_ see the family resemblance with them.”

Dave considered Annie closely for a second and then looked back at Susan and shrugged. 

“I don’t know.”

 _“Seriously?”_ Susan said in disbelief. “Face? Hair? Those?”

Susan released Annie from the hug and pointed to the girl's face, hair, and crutches in turn, but the resident still shrugged. 

“I don’t know,” Dave repeated. 

“Dr. Weaver?” Susan offered. 

Dave’s mouth formed into the ‘o’ of understanding before he raised his hands defensively. 

“Sorry, sorry. But, in my defense, I’ve only worked with her like twice since I got here.”

“Uh-huh.” Susan narrowed her eyes at him and then leaned her head sideways towards Annie. “He’s only worked with her twice, but after she was in here on Tuesday, he spent _all day_ yesterday going around and asking us if we knew ‘what was wrong with her leg.’”

“He _did?”_ Annie asked with a look almost like disgust.

“Mm-hmm,” Susan said, nodding. “I eventually heard about it and told him to cut it out. But only because Momma wasn’t down here to hit him with her crutch.”

Annie nodded for a second, and then cocked her head sideways. 

“Can _I_ hit him?”

Dave chuckled a bit at the question until Susan shrugged and said, “Sure. Why not?” 

He then immediately hissed in pain as he got a hard _whack_ on the shin from Annie. 

It was the pronounced sound and look of pain on Dave’s face that made Susan suck in air and pull Annie back towards her.

“On second thought, I shouldn’t have let you do that,” she said sheepishly. “I didn’t think you were going to hit him that hard.”

“Why not?” Annie asked in confusion. 

Susan thought about it for a second, but she couldn’t really say why she’d thought that, and instead just shrugged.

She muttered a word of apology to Dave and was about to tell Annie to take her seat in the ‘Waiting Chair’ at the desk when she saw Adam come in through the Ambulance Bay doors. When she saw him wave at the two of them, she made sure Annie had her duffel bag with her overnight stuff as well as her soccer bag with her things for practice before kissing her on the forehead and turning her over to her Abba. 

Though they all felt Mildred’s absence keenly all the time, it was the summers where they felt it the most. She had been their primary childcare provider, and while they were able to manage with a babysitter in the evenings most of the year thanks to daycare and school, summer posed a problem.

Given that Adam was a teacher and therefore was off during the summer, Kerry had approached him and Michael to assist in looking after Annie when she and Susan had to work. The thought was that Suzie could go to daycare on those days, but he insisted that that was not necessary. He’d be happy to look after Suzie too.

Kerry being who she was, she laid out a calendar for June through August labeled with events, holidays, and work schedules. On days where she and Susan both had to work overnight (which would be less frequent with Kerry’s new position), they hired a babysitter to stay with however many children would be at the house that night.

On days like today, Susan was home for most of the day, and had dropped Suzie off at dance class on the way in. Annie’s new soccer team this summer practiced at a field close to County not too long after, so she’d come in and wait at the desk until whichever parent responsible for transport took her over. 

(It had occurred to Susan that, while most of the veteran ER staff knew who Annie was, newer staff and visitors from other departments did not and therefore were occasionally _very_ surprised and confused as to why there was a miniature version of their boss reading _The Magic Treehouse_ books on a stool in Admit. Reactions varied from the new desk clerk Amita’s “Aw, that’s so cute!” to Romano’s stunned “Jesus Christ, there’s two of them.”)

It was a good time Adam showed up when he did, as he and Annie had barely disappeared into the Ambulance Bay when Susan heard angry voices from down the hall. 

She and several others stepped out from behind the desk to see what the commotion was, and spotted Kerry coming down the hall with Romano hot on her heels.

“It was due on my desk by this afternoon,” Kerry stated firmly. “And since it wasn’t, you’re late.”

“I swear I put it in your box, Kerry,” Romano said before pretending to suddenly remember something. “Oh _wait._ I bet I put it in your box down _here_ in the ER where you _belong.”_

“Robert, I’m giving you until tomorrow morning to get it to me,” Kerry said without looking at him. “But if it’s not there by ten, there will be hell to pay.”

“I promise I’ll do my best, but you have to understand, Kerry: Not all of us have all day to do administrative stuff.. Some of us have to be down in this hellhole _saving lives_ instead of sitting on our ass doing nothing in our cushy new office upstairs.”

Kerry rolled her eyes as she continued towards the elevators, but Romano kept pace with her and didn’t miss a beat.

“It makes me wonder if it’s worth it though,” he continued in the tone of someone thinking out loud. “You know, Kerry, after that last round of budget shredding you did, I realized how little you care whether you have experience and skilled surgeons. We’re all talking about it. You expect us to save all the trauma patients you all nearly kill, and yet, you cut our pay in half. Frankly, it’s just a bit unfair.”

At the word ‘unfair,’ Kerry spun towards him, stopping him in his tracks. 

“No, Robert. That’s not unfair at all. You know what _is_ unfair? When you’re pulling down 200 grand a year and the support staff that spend all day covering your ass in the OR are on _food stamps. That’s_ unfair, Robert.”

Kerry turned back and continued, but Romano stayed put. 

“Well, maybe I should take my talents to some other hospital where my talent will be appreciated,” he called out after her. “Somewhere where the Chief of Staff isn’t such a goddamn bitch.”

Everyone watched as Kerry stopped. She paused a moment and then slowly turned back towards him, a rigidly neutral expression on her face. 

“Robert, I’m going to give you one warning,” she said in a low, but dangerous voice. “Don’t say another word or there are going to be consequences.”

Those watching collectively held their breath to see whether Romano was going to speak or not. But just as they thought he might be taking Kerry at her word, he raised a hand to his chest and looked taken aback.

“Is that your ‘mom’ voice? Are you _‘mom-ing’_ me?” he asked in an offended tone. “Because I’m fairly certain that counts as gender-based harassment there, Kerry-”

_“Elizabeth.”_

Elizabeth, who had been passing by as Kerry and Romano argued, stopped. She’d been so focused on the tasks she had to complete for her resident upstairs that she hadn’t noticed the shouting and thus just looked between them expectantly.

“Yes?” 

“Are you still looking for a new job after you finish your internship?” Kerry asked without breaking eye contact with Romano.

“Yes,” Elizabeth answered with a sigh. “I’ve put out a few resumes, but I haven’t heard anything yet.”

“How would you like to be our new Chief of Surgery?”

Several people, including Elizabeth, gasped. Romano just stood there dumbfounded, his mouth hanging open.

“But-but-” Elizabeth stammered, quickly looking back and forth. “But what about Robert?”

“You can’t do that, Kerry,” Romano said in a voice closest to ‘timid’ that anyone around had ever heard him use. “You can’t demote me just because we don’t get along.”

“It wouldn’t be just for that,” Kerry said fiercely. “Because I’ve been talking to people in high places around here and apparently I’m not the only one you’re on thin ice with. Add to that your _grossly_ inappropriate behavior and lackluster administration, and I think I have more than enough grounds to explore new leadership.”

“I’ll do better,” Romano said quickly. “I’ll do better. I’ll fix it. I pro- I _swear.”_

Kerry observed him closely for a second, trying to judge his sincerity. After a moment she looked at the _other_ dumbfounded surgeon.

“Elizabeth, make that _Associate_ Chief of Surgery. Though, I’m willing to negotiate the first word-” Kerry turned back to Romano _“-should performance not improve.”_

Though part of Elizabeth felt incredibly guilty about the way Romano ran back to Surgery with his tail between his legs, the part of her that no longer had to dread the job search thanked Kerry profusely. 

A few feet away, Susan tapped Mark on the arm and then pointed at Kerry, a broad smile on her face.

“That’s my wife.”

Though watching Kerry knock Romano down a peg in front of God and everybody was arguably the most attractive thing Susan had ever seen (overtaking the long held memory of watching diver Greg Louganis make his comeback to win gold at the 1988 Olympics), she didn’t have time to say anything about it before Kerry abruptly reminded her that they were to meet upstairs in twenty minutes and then made for the elevators.

Susan made her way upstairs a few minutes before the time they were supposed to meet, carefully choosing her words, only to promptly forget why she was doing so when a young White man in a carefully pressed suit greeted her at the desk outside Kerry’s office. 

“Ah, Dr. Lewis,” he said with a smile. “Dr. Weaver is expecting you.”

He rose from his chair and then gently knocked on the closed office door. He waited a moment for a reply before pushing the door open and gesturing Susan inside. 

He stepped in after her, waiting by the door until he caught Kerry’s eye.

“That will be all, Mr. Harris,” Kerry said with a nod. 

The young man nodded in reply and then ducked out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him. 

Susan watched the door close before looking back at Kerry. 

“I keep forgetting you have your own assistant now and, honestly, that’s just so cool that I completely forgot why I was mad at you.”

“Mad at me?” Kerry said, frowning. “For what?”

“For completely disemboweling Romano and then not letting me have the chance to make you blush by telling you how hot that was.” 

“Right,” Kerry said as a tinge of color rose in her cheeks. She tried to draw attention away from it by motioning to one of the chairs in front of her desk. “Well, now that you’re here, we can get down to business.”

Susan smiled. 

“Yes, we can.”

Before Kerry could nod and return to her chair, Susan stepped forward and pulled her into a kiss. 

Kerry lost all capability of thought for a brief moment before opening her eyes and pushing Susan away as the tinge of color on her face deepened. 

_“Susan.”_

Susan looked troubled by this for a moment before her eyes widened in understanding.

“Ohhhh. This is a real meeting.”

“Of course it is,” Kerry said, frowning. “What did you think it was?”

“Well, when you said the other day that you wanted to ‘meet with me upstairs,’” Susan said slowly, “I thought that was a euphemism for ‘make out in your new office.’”

“No. _God,_ pregnancy has made you horny,” Kerry said with a scoff. Then, she dropped her voice. “We can do that later.”

She then quickly straightened up and motioned to the chairs. 

“But, first, we need to talk about the ER.”

Susan heaved a sigh but sat down, nonetheless. 

Kerry picked up her glasses from where they hung on the chain around her neck and replaced them on her nose. She then picked up several documents out of a manila folder on her desk.

“Now, I know I gave you my ER binders,” she began, “but I found a few more things in my files that I wanted to pass on. 

Kerry launched into a spiel regarding Susan’s new responsibility to meet with Doug Ross quarterly regarding ER oversight of the Pediatric Trauma Center. When that was complete, Kerry then handed Susan a copy of a recently-funded grant proposal for a new collaboration between the ER and Psych intent on decreasing wait times by installing clinical social workers in the ER to assess patients having mental health crises. 

She was just about to discuss potential candidates the open ER Attending position and inform Susan of the disappointing news that her coffee with Gabe Lawrence had revealed some concerns about his memory in the form of forgetting they’d last seen each other at Mildred’s funeral by claiming that Mildred wasn’t dead when she saw the look on Susan’s face and let out a huff.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

Susan wanted to lie, but she knew Kerry could see how hard she was biting her lip and knew it would be pointless. 

“I’m _sorry._ It’s just the glasses and the suit and you sitting behind the desk like that is just _really_ doing it for me.” Susan frowned. “You’re right. Pregnancy _has_ made me horny.”

Kerry rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair. 

“If I kiss you, are you going to be able to listen to be able to pay more attention when we’re done?”

Susan shrugged.

“Honestly, I can’t make any promises,” Susan said with a resigned sigh. “Though, I _can_ promise that I will pay a _lot_ more attention if you take off your blazer. Not necessarily to what you’re saying, but I _will_ be paying more attention.”

“Oh, good Lord.”

At the genuine annoyance in Kerry’s tone, Susan’s playful smirk faded somewhat. 

“I’m sorry.” Susan sat up in her chair. “I’m listening. Really. You were saying something about social workers?”

Kerry observed Susan over her glasses for a second (reminding Susan very much of her mother as she did so) before looking back down at her papers.

“I said that Adele Newman has narrowed her search for the clinical social workers down to a handful of candidates. She should have final decisions for us next week,” Kerry explained, repeating herself from the time of Susan’s inattention. “They will be the ones performing emergency mental health assessments on patients in the ER. They will then page Psych if there is truly an emergency.”

“But Adele won’t be one of them?”

“Correct. We’re in the process of creating a new Department of Patient and Social Services, which I’ve tapped Adele to lead. There will be several divisions, many of which will be reorganized from existing divisions in other departments, but with the intention of bringing all social workers and case managers under one department even though they’re housed in different places.”

Susan nodded. Then, she made a face almost like a grimace.

“What?” Kerry asked, looking up.

“Isn’t it a bit… _early_ to start creating new departments and reorganizing the hospital?” Susan asked cautiously. “I mean… You haven’t even been in the position for a month yet.”

“I assure you that I have run all of this by Dr. Anspaugh and the Board of Directors,” Kerry said defensively. “And they’re supportive of my proposals so far.”

“And I am too,” Susan assured her quickly. “I just… I just don’t want you to bite off more than you can chew. Or piss off any higher ups and lose the job.”

Kerry inhaled like she was about to rant and/or get even _more_ defensive. But she forced herself to exhale slowly.

“I… I appreciate your concern,” Kerry said slowly. “But, trust me, this is _slow_ compared to what I have planned for later on. And I fully intend to see this through successfully before I propose anything else to the Board. Because I need them to trust my judgement before Dr. Anspaugh and I present our next proposal a year or two from now.”

“And what would that be?”

Kerry smirked. 

“Giving them term limits.”

Susan cocked her head curiously. 

“Out of curiosity, exactly how far have you planned ahead?” 

Kerry shrugged. 

“Well, nothing’s certain because who knows what will change in healthcare between now and then-”

“Name me a year,” Susan directed. “How far in advance have you been making plans for the hospital?”

Kerry tapped her fingers on the table, but didn’t answer. 

_“Kerry,”_ Susan said, narrowing her eyes. “How far in advance have you been planning?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes.”

Kerry inhaled. 

“As far as more concrete plans, I’ve only planned through 2002,” Kerry explained. “But for more, let’s say, _abstract_ plans...2026.”

“2026?” Susan repeated. “That’s… what? Twenty-seven years from now?”

“Yes,” Kerry said, nodding. “It’s the year I will turn 65, and therefore, it’s the year I reach Step Eight in the Master Plan. Also known as my retirement.”

“So, you intend to run this hospital until you retire?” Susan asked, not hiding the skepticism in her tone. 

“The plans are abstract for a reason,” Kerry stated. “But yes. Barring any unforeseen circumstances - personally or professionally - I intend to hold this position until I retire.”

Susan nodded.

“Okay. And there’s nothing that can change your mind on that?”

Kerry considered the question for a moment. 

“The only thing I could think of is armageddon.”

“I guess the end of the world _would_ be a decent reason to retire,” Susan remarked. Then, her playful smirk returned. “Could anything change your mind about making out right now?”

Kerry rolled her eyes, but Susan didn’t miss the way they briefly flicked to the office door. 

“And you’re sure you won’t be able to do any more work-related stuff until that happens?” she asked. 

“Not a chance.”

“Fine,” she said, giving in. “But we can’t make a habit of this.”

“Why not?” Susan asked, rising from her chair so she could ensure the door was locked before shedding her lab coat. “You’ve got your own office now. And you just said you expect to have it for a while…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first time I watched Dave Malucci circle the ER staff asking about why Kerry used a crutch, I remember telling my then-roommate "Kerry's about to kick this guy's ass." But, sadly, she just told him off. And, other than coming up with mentioning that Susan had tried to convince him it was due to a knife-fight gone wrong, I didn't really get the chance to address it in the "uc" universe either. So, when planning this chapter (I almost said episode), I was pleased to realize I could let Annie do it. 
> 
> I wanted to use this title on the last chapter, but realized it would be better to change that one to reflect the episode it was based on and use "HBIC" here instead. And I've gotta say that one of the most fun parts of writing Kerry is that, no matter what universe or time in that universe, nobody does Head Bitch in Charge better. I'm just glad that in this universe, it can be a productive and positive HBIC instead of a backstabbing and usually-portrayed-as-negative HBIC. Because, as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler said on _SNL_ way back when, "Bitches get stuff done." And this bitch _really_ gets stuff done. 
> 
> Anways, we're going to skip forward in Season 6 a little but in the next chapter, which is probably not suprising. After all, it's Valentine's Day. Who doesn't love Valentine's Day?
> 
> :)
> 
> Until next time!


	30. An Unassuming Valentine's Day

Susan tried to pull out of Kerry’s embrace, but that only made Kerry hug her harder.

“Just stay here,” Kerry said, her cheek pressed against Susan’s back. “Don’t go.”

“I _have_ to go.”

“No, you don’t,” Kerry pressed. “You’re going to have a baby tomorrow. Or even _tonight-”_

“Which means that this is my last chance to work for at least three months,” Susan finished. 

“I’m sure your Chief of Emergency Services will understand.”

Susan inhaled deeply. 

“That’s true. Tonya _is_ pretty understanding… but she’s also very _new_ ,” Susan remarked. “And I wouldn’t want her getting in trouble with her boss, because our new Chief of Staff is a piece of work.”

“I’m sure the Chief of Staff would understand, too.”

“Well, clearly, you’ve never met her.”

Kerry responded by squeezing Susan even tighter. 

“I will say, though, that the new Chief of Staff _does_ sort of owe me for helping get her the job,” Susan thought aloud, “which means I can pretty much do whatever I want…”

Kerry picked her head up. 

“Meaning you’re not going?”

Susan smiled. 

“Meaning I am.”

Knowing a lost battle when she saw one, Kerry released Susan and heaved a sigh. But as Susan excused herself to the bathroom, Kerry had an idea. 

She crooked a finger at the girls, who were both sitting on the couch watching _Nickelodeon._ When they dutifully got down and came over to her, she leaned down and whispered something to them.

“Why?” Annie asked when Kerry straightened up.

“Just do it,” Kerry said, rolling her eyes. 

Just as Annie was going to ask more questions, Susan returned to the kitchen and picked her coat up from the back of one of the chairs at the table. While she was distracted with the coat, Kerry nodded them on.

Once her coat was on, Susan turned for the door, and as soon as she did so, both girls started hugging her around the middle.

“Don’t _goooooo,”_ Suzie whined. 

“Stay here with us,” Annie chimed in. _“Please?”_

As the girls continued their whining and groaning in an attempt to keep Mommy from going to work, Mommy looked up at the instigator of said display.

“This is cruel,” Susan said flatly. “Why would you do this to me?”

Kerry feigned innocence, but when Susan broke free of the girls and let Kerry kiss her on the cheek, she could feel Kerry smirking.

Truth be told, she didn’t really want her to go to work either. But between all the preparations for the baby’s arrival and the way there seemed to be a wife and/or child in or near any room Susan went to, she desperately needed a break before being home for twelve weeks to care for a newborn (and a preschooler and a fourth-grader).

“Okay,” she said, exhaling as Susan finally waddled up to the Admit Desk. “What’s going on?”

“Are you sure you’re supposed to be here?” Carter asked, pausing as he passed by. “You look ready to go at any minute.”

“Yes, Carter. I am aware,” Susan said, her sarcasm taking on a threatening edge.

“I just meant we’ve got things covered if you need to go home… or upstairs.”

“I’m fine,” Susan insisted firmly, rubbing a hand over her protruding stomach. “So, just tell me who to go see.”

She (slowly) approached where Luka Kovac stood at the board, her hands supporting her back.

Given the way he looked her over, it was clear that he shared Carter’s concerns, but had the good sense not to say anything about it.

“What have we got?” Susan asked, scanning the board.

“A few lacerations, a few drunks,” he read. “Two lover’s squabbles and Lucy’s patient who might be experiencing psychosis.”

“Has Carmen gone to see them?” 

“On my way right now,” a voice replied from behind her. 

Susan turned to see Carmen Vargas-Vega tuck something in her purse and then straighten up and hold up the chart Lucy had given her. 

“Are you sure you should be working?” Carmen asked as she too looked Susan up and down.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” Susan hissed, waving her (and everyone else) away.

“Okay,” Carmen said, raising her hands defensively. “But if you go into labor in the middle of the hallway like that one lady did last week, I’m not catching it. That’s up to the rest of you.”

The social worker, a Latina lesbian that liked libraries, lacrosse, and Lucy Knight, gave Susan a thumbs up and the hint of a wink (likely due to who had paged her) before proceeding on to her patient. 

She was the youngest of the social workers who had been hired to serve as middlemen between the ER and Psych, but was probably the most tenacious of them all. Mark had once made an off-handed comment comparing Carmen to Kerry, which most people would have taken as an insult, but that Carmen had taken as the greatest of compliments.

Once Carmen had rounded the corner to see Lucy's (and by extension Carter’s) patient down the hall, Susan looked back up at the board and then immediately sucked in air. 

“You okay?” Luka asked, looking down at her. “Labor pains?”

“No,” Susan said, exhaling. “Kid just likes to move around a lot.”

She paused for a second and then shook her head and turned her attention back to the board. 

“Who hasn’t been seen yet?”

“How about you take the LOL with an arm laceration in Exam One?” Luka offered. 

Susan rolled her eyes. 

“Come on, Kovac. I can do more than sutures.”

Luka scanned the board again. 

“There’s also the LOL with an impacted bowel in Curtain Four.”

“You said arm lac in One?”

Luka chuckled and scribbled her initials on the board next to a _Lowry, Marie_ as the desk clerk handed Susan the chart and she started for Curtain One.

Lydia was checking the temperature of a kid in the bed opposite an elderly Black woman.

“Are you Ms. Lowry?” Susan asked the woman as Lydia pulled the curtain closed for privacy.

“Mrs. Lowry. And, dear. I am.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Lowry,” Susan said with a smile as she nudged a stool over with her foot and carefully lowered herself down. “I’m Dr. Lewis. I’m here to take a look at your arm.”

“You sure you shouldn’t be the one in the bed?” Mrs. Lowry asked, raising her eyebrows in question. “Because you look just about ready to pop. How far along are you?”

“Forty weeks. But I promise I’m quite alright,” Susan replied, actively keeping herself from clenching her jaw. 

She busied herself with pulling a pair of gloves out of the box (trying to hide the difficulty she had reaching over her stomach) and then rolled the stool closer to the bed in order to observe the gash along the inside of the woman’s left arm.

“Now, can you tell me what happened?” Susan asked, gingerly lifting the woman’s arm. 

“Damn ice,” Mrs. Lowry said, shaking her head.

“Did you cut it on ice or did you hit something when you fell?” Susan asked as she reached for the lidocaine to numb the area. 

“Uh, just on the ice,” Mrs. Lowry replied quickly. “No need to update my tetanus or anything.”

Susan glanced up at her curiously after injecting the lidocaine. Mrs. Lowry just smiled.

“I was an ICU nurse for thirty years,” Mrs. Lowry explained. “Over at Southside. Up until it closed that is.”

“I see. We got some of the doctors from Southside. Including our Chief Resident,” Susan said as she picked up the forceps and the needle driver. “So, if you’re an ICU nurse, you know the drill then.”

Mrs. Lowry nodded as Susan began the first suture. 

“You know, I started using a cane back in November to keep my balance and keep this sort of thing from happening. But it didn't do squat when it mattered.”

She nodded to a purple cane leaning against the table next to the bed with a floral design on the handle and body.

Susan chuckled and nodded in acknowledgement.

“I understand what you mean. I live with two crutch users and that’s a big concern every winter,” Susan explained as she sutured. “One really enjoys sliding around on the ice and one doesn’t. But I guess that’s the difference between being nine and being almost _thirty_ -nine.”

Susan’s eyes flicked up automatically, waiting for the inevitable questions and/or comments (usually regarding the nine-year-old). But, instead, she just saw the old woman’s eyes fill with tears in the moment before she began to cry.

“I-I-I lied,” she said in between sobs. “I-I didn’t slip on the ice. I-I-I did it… did it to myself.”

“You did?” Susan asked quietly.

The old woman nodded.

“I-I was cooking dinner and…” She tried to take a deep breath. “My husband died last year. We’d been together since we were fifteen and I’ve just been… I’ve just been a mess since he died.

“And it’s-it’s Valentine’s Day. It’s our anniversary. And I’d been thinking about him while I was dicing onions and I just… I just…”

The woman didn’t finish her sentence.

Susan finished off her last two sutures as quickly (and accurately) as she could so she could clip the sutures and take off her glove to take the woman’s hand. 

“Mrs. Lowry-”

“Marie.”

“Marie,” Susan repeated, nodding. “Marie, I’d like you to talk to our social worker.”

“You’re not going to call Psych on me?”

“I could if you want,” Susan said gently. “But we have a social worker in the ER who works with us and with Psych to talk to the patients who come in feeling like you. And, between you and me, I think she’s much better at it than Psych is.

“And if she talks to you and feels like you should talk to Psych too, she’ll be with you when they come… Okay?”

Marie sniffled, but nodded. Susan squeezed her hand and then stood up. 

She flagged Haleh down in the hallway to ask if she or one of the other nurses could sit with Marie until Carmen could see her. Haleh peeked inside and nodded before she flagged down Lily and explained what was going on.

She needed to sit in a real chair next time, she thought as she took a seat on a hard-backed stool at Admit. Her back was killing her. 

“You okay there, Dr. Lewis?” Malucci asked at the sound of Susan groaning slightly as she moved. 

“Yeah. Just carrying around twenty extra pounds than I usually do,” she said, exhaling through her nose. “And most of it is sticking out from me.”

Malucci frowned. 

“The baby weighs twenty pounds?” 

“No, Dave. The baby weighs seven pounds,” she said in a tone of exasperation. “I’ve gained twenty pounds since I got pregnant… Well, technically twenty-six. And it’s doing a number on my back.”

“You know that lower back pain is a symptom of labor, right?”

 _“Oh, for the love of God,”_ Susan groaned, throwing her head back in annoyance. “I’m not contracting and my water hasn’t broken. I’m not in labor.”

“Are you sure?”

Susan picked her head up and cast Dave a look of deepest loathing. 

“Well, when I stuck my hand down my pants a second ago, it came out dry. So, I’m pretty sure.”

Dave cringed at the mental image.

“You could have just said ‘yes.’”

“I could have,” Susan said, shrugging in acknowledgement, “but are you going to ask me again?”

“No.”

“Then, it worked.”

Dave rolled his eyes as he continued on to his next patient. He had no sooner gone (a look of disgust still on his face) when Lucy stepped around Jerry, a piece of paper and a thick book in her hand.

“Hey, Lucy,” Susan called out, lazily throwing a hand out to stop her. “Has Carmen finished with your patient yet?”

“Not yet,” Lucy replied. “She asked that I get her a copy of the _DSM_ and an assessment form for her.”

Lucy held up the paper as well as the book, the title _The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV_ Susan could read upside down.

“Oh, there you are,” Carter said from down the hall. 

Both Lucy and Susan looked at him to see to whom he was referring when he held out a chart to Lucy. 

“I got a leg lac for you.”

“I’m in the middle of getting this to Carmen,” Lucy informed him, indicating the materials in her hand. 

“I’ll take it to Carmen,” Susan offered. “I’ll tell her about my patient while I’m at it.”

Lucy looked a little put out, but nevertheless handed Susan the book and paper before taking the chart in Carter’s hand. 

Susan was about to call her back and ask which room she was in when she happened to spot Carmen coming out of the lounge. She was slowly guiding a young olive-skinned man with curly hair and beard in her direction. 

As she and the man passed by Susan, she noticed the maroon book in Susan’s hand and raised her eyebrows. 

“Those for me?”

Susan nodded, falling into step along with the pair of them back towards Curtain Three. But before she could say anything else, Carmen raised a quick finger to pause her before leading the patient into the room, settling him back into bed, and then rejoining Susan in the hallway. 

“Great. Thank you,” Carmen said as Susan passed her the book and form. “Lucy get held up?”

“Carter had another patient for her.”

Carmen nodded, though she too looked a little put out. 

“Truth be told,” she said, looking up from the book in her hand to Susan, “I’ve got all the criteria memorized, but I only know the _DSM_ codes and not the _ICD-9_ ones. So, I need the reference.”

“You’ve got that whole book memorized?” 

“Pretty much,” Carmen said with a shrug. “One of the classes during my MSW was referred to as the _‘DSM_ class.’ This was the textbook, and if you didn’t do your reading, you did _not_ do well on the quiz.”

“Okay, then,” Susan said, impressed. “Well, when you get done in here, will you come talk to another patient? 67-year-old LOL said she cut her arm on ice, but when I was stitching it up, she told me it was self-inflicted.”

“Is she alone?” Carmen asked, her previous casual tone immediately replaced with the serious professional tone.

“No. Haleh is with her.”

“Okay, good,” Carmed said, relaxing slightly. “I’ll come talk to her, but it’s going to be a while.”

Carmen dropped her voice. 

“I don’t feel comfortable leaving him alone right now. I’d rather stay with him until Psych gets down here.”

“Do you think he’s going to hurt someone?” Susan asked in an equally quiet voice before glancing surreptitiously at the man in the bed. “Because we can use restraints if-”

Susan cut herself off at the taken aback look on Carmen’s face. 

“Oh _hell_ no. Trauma-Informed Care, baby. We don’t play that.”

Susan’s brow knitted in confusion.

“Trauma-Informed Care?”

“You guys don’t know about it?” Carmen asked, a smile creeping onto her face. At Susan’s continued look of confusion, Carmen assumed a look of triumph. “I _knew_ it. I told Adele that in supervision a couple weeks ago and said I should bring it up, but she said no. Well, I guess you all are getting articles in your box then.”

“I mean, we’re… trauma-informed,” Susan said (more defensively than she’d intended). “As in… the trauma informs our care...”

“That’s not what it means,” Carmen said, shaking her head. “Think of it like… like universal precautions. But instead of bodily fluids that might carry infectious disease, it’s people who may have experienced trauma at some point. So, just like you wouldn’t ask every single person if they had HIV or Hep C and just put gloves on for everybody, Trauma-Informed Care assumes someone’s more likely to have experienced some kind of trauma - medical trauma, abuse, neglect, disaster, etc. - and takes precautionary measures against re-traumatizing them. 

“Or, in this case, traumatizing them during a time of crisis by forcibly restraining them.”

At the look on Susan’s face, Carmen smiled wide, her eyebrows rising so high they disappeared behind her bangs.

“You all never thought _you_ were causing the trauma, did you?” she asked, poking Susan in the shoulder. “You know, I think I was kidding, but I’m not now; I _am_ going to give you all that article to read… Though, you get an extra three months longer than everyone else.”

Susan gave a small smile, but still felt unsure.

“Okay. But if things get out of hand, let us know.”

Carmen rolled her eyes, but gave a thumbs up, nonetheless, before turning back to the doorway. 

Susan paused an extra moment before returning down the hall for the desk. 

But as she sat down on the stool again, she exhaled deeply, the air escaping her lungs sounding almost like a hiss. 

“Hey, Dr. Lewis?” 

Susan opened her eyes from where she’d closed them for a brief moment to see Lucy in front of her, looking deeply concerned. 

“What?”

“Could you, uh… Could you come see a patient for me?” she asked hesitantly, her brow furrowing slightly.

Susan heaved a heavy sigh.

“Can’t you have Kovac or Carter do it?”

Lucy stepped forward and dropped her voice. 

“The patient isn’t very comfortable with male doctors,” she told Susan quietly.

Susan considered saying ‘no’ for a long second, but then reluctantly pushed herself back into a standing position and followed Lucy out from behind the desk and past the elevators for the Suture Room. 

“Lucy, there’s no one in here,” Susan said, scanning around the empty room. 

When she glanced up at Lucy in question, she found the med student looking sheepish. 

“I know,” she said hesitantly. “... _You’re_ the patient.”

Immediately, the look of confusion on Susan’s face gave way to anger.

_“Lucy.”_

“I’m _sorry,_ Dr. Lewis,” Lucy moaned, “but you’ve been groaning since you got here and Dave said that you were having lower back pain. I just thought maybe we should put you on a fetal heart monitor just in case-”

“I am not contracting and my water has not broken,” Susan said through gritted teeth. “I am not in labor.”

“I know, but-”

“I came into work tonight to get _away_ from all the smothering, and that’s all you all have been doing since I walked in,” Susan said in frustration. “Why can’t you all just trust me when I say I’m not in labor yet? I came here to enjoy my last shift before I go on maternity leave and you all have made it incredibly difficult. I appreciate your concern, but I promise you, when I go into labor, I will _know.”_

Lucy nodded, but the look of sheepishness on her face only seemed to grow. 

Susan let out a huff. 

“What?”

“I might have already called Dr. Weaver...”

Lucy’s eyes grew wide in fear as Susan’s nostrils flared. 

“Get. Back. To. Work. Ms. Knight.”

Lucy nodded quickly and all but ran for the door. But as she passed Susan, the pregnant Attending’s arm flew out to stop her. 

“And spread the word that the next person who asks me if I’m in labor is going to get themselves choked.”

Lucy nodded again, her eyes saucers, as she raced out. 

Susan exhaled deeply, unconsciously rubbing a hand over her stomach.

“She’s right you know,” a male voice said from behind her.

Susan turned for the doorway and gave the doctor leaning against it a look of deepest exasperation. (Or, perhaps, loathing. She couldn’t be sure at this point.)

“Carter, if you were standing there long enough to know what we were talking about, then you were around to hear my warning.” She held up her hands in the direction of his neck. “Strangle. You.”

“You sure you could?” he asked with a smirk. “You know… Over your…”

He reached his arms out in the same gesture and then nodded towards Susan’s stomach.

“If I knock ya down first, I can,” Susan said seriously.

“We’re just trying to look out for you.”

“And I’m just trying to do my job,” Susan replied. “Now, do you have any idea if Carmen is done with your patient yet?”

Carter frowned. 

“You mean Lucy’s patient?”

“Lucy does not have an ‘MD’ after her name yet, so at the end of the day, it’s _your_ patient.”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. 

Susan rolled her eyes. 

“Okay. Go back to Admit and see if Psych’s come down yet,” she directed. “I’m going to go pee.”

Carter gave another shrug, but started back down the hall towards Admit before Susan reached the doorway. 

She inhaled deeply and then turned right in the direction of the bathrooms. But as she passed the front hallway, she glanced to her left and slowed to a halt. 

That was weird, she thought as she approached the door. The lights in Curtain Three appeared to be off. 

They _never_ turned the lights off. She was pretty sure it was an OSHA violation. (And her being unsure meant she probably should have paid more attention in that seminar.)

Susan looked around at the nearby rooms and hallway lights, wondering if perhaps they’d popped a breaker, but nothing around was off.

Slowly, Susan pushed the door open. 

Even in the dim light, she could see that the room was empty. 

“Carmen?” she asked quietly, poking her head in. “Carmen?”

When there was no reply, she straightened up and stepped further into the room. But it didn’t reveal anything new or different, and rather just deepened her confusion.

And as she glanced around, trying to figure out what happened to the social worker and the patient she’d been waiting with, Susan just happened to miss the sound of the door swinging shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) 
> 
> Until next time!


	31. All In The Family Pt. 1

A contraction so powerful that Susan became briefly positive she was about to give birth right then and there caused her to double over in pain, clutching at her stomach. Not a second later, something grazed her back, ripping the cloth of her lab coat from her mid-back all the way to her left shoulder blade.

Hissing as the path of the object began to sting in pain, Susan glanced up and to her left. 

Carmen’s patient was standing behind her, looking down at her. In his left hand was a butcher knife dripping with fresh blood.

Connecting the pain in her shoulder with the knife, Susan immediately leaned away from him, transferring her body weight onto her right leg as he threw his body weight forward in another lunge. 

At the same moment, Susan’s left foot slid back in an attempt to turn away from him. By luck or by God, the effort with which he had lunged had caused him to lose balance, meaning when her left foot hooked his right as he turned, she accidentally swept it out from under him.

He fell forward hard, crashing to the floor with a sickening _crunch._ But Susan had been just as off-balance, meaning she too fell, albeit onto her back.

She could not waste time cursing or pausing to check her wound as the man scrambled onto his hands and knees. The knife was in front of him, just barely out of his reach.

Another contraction forced Susan into a sitting position, and, using the combined force of the pain and the adrenaline, she kicked at him hard with her right foot and heard another _crunch_ as her shoe connected with his jaw. 

He collapsed onto his stomach, dazed. Blood streamed from his nose, which had broken when he fell. 

For several seconds, he just lay there, dazed. Susan paid him no mind, though, as the kick had made the pain of the contraction even worse. 

She had managed to roll onto her knees when she started to feel dizzy. Lights popped in front of her eyes and she thought she might pass out when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. 

Her adrenaline surged again. She did the only thing she and/or her instincts could think of and rolled onto her left side and then onto her back, pinning him to the ground beneath her. 

“I get it, kid. I get it. They were right,” she hissed as another contraction swept through her. “Now, could you just hold on?”

As this contraction forced her to sit up some, she realized how close she was to the door. And again, she used the pain of the contraction to fuel her kick as well as her shouts, both out of a need for help and out of pain. 

Leaning back as the wave of pain subsided, Susan’s head lolled to the side, only to immediately perk up again. 

“Carmen? _CARMEN?”_

The social worker lay still and bloody on the floor on the other side of the patient’s bed. At the sound of her name, her eyes twitched, but she didn’t move. 

Just as Susan had the terrible thought that perhaps it was because she couldn’t, she felt the man stop wriggling beneath her. Thinking he had finally passed out, Susan made to roll off of him and get to Carmen. 

But as soon as she began to lift herself up off of him, she realized it was a feint. He was still conscious and had tried to go still enough that she’d move and he could get the knife from where it lay barely six inches out of his reach.

Susan heard him grunt as he made another attempt for the knife and immediately rolled back on top of him as another contraction started. 

Then, with as much effort as her rapidly-tiring body would allow, Susan gave another kick at the door. 

Time had no meaning at the moment, which made it very difficult to tell how far apart the contractions were and how long before they’d be joined by a newborn nor could Susan tell how long she’d been lying there when the door finally opened and Carter rushed in. 

“Susan? Susan!” he exclaimed as he saw her lying on the floor, still pinning the struggling patient to the ground. 

“Carmen,” she panted, pointing to her left. “Get… Carmen… _AuuuggghHHHH.”_

The pain of a contraction combined with a burst of pain from her shoulder. 

Carter looked quickly between her and the bed it appeared she was pointing at, confused. But before asking for any clarification, he leaned out the door and shouted for more help. 

“Carmen...” Susan pointed again as Carter knelt down beside her. “Help... Carmen.”

He followed her finger to where Carmen lay. When he made eye contact with her, Carmen’s fingers seemed to twitch as if she was trying to wave at him. 

Lucy and Dave appeared in the doorway. There was a _click_ and Susan recoiled as light flooded the room. 

“Get a gurney. Get _two_ gurneys,” Carter ordered those standing in the doorway. “And call the police.”

Lucy and Dave said nothing and just ran back out the door. Susan could hear them shouting at the others for help as they ran down the hallway. 

And, within seconds, Luka, Carol, and the med student Abby Lockhart had rushed into the room. Dave, Lucy, Yosh, and Lydia joined them a few seconds later with two gurneys at the ready.

Luka and Dave looked like they were about to pick Susan up, but instead, they each knelt down on opposite sides of the patient to hold him down so Susan could get up. Carter and Lucy then began trying to negotiate Susan onto the gurney while the others made for Carmen. 

“Just… Just help me _up,”_ Susan demanded as they tried (and failed) to get her onto the gurney. “Get a… Get a wheelchair…”

“We need to get you to the trauma room,” Carter said seriously as Susan pushed them both away and started to turn onto her side to get up.

 _“NO,”_ Susan shouted through gritted teeth. “I am _NOT_ having this baby in the trauma room. Take… take me upstairs.”

Susan started to get to her feet, so Carter immediately stepped to her right side and Lucy to her left to help support her.

But as the pain of another contraction started, Carter grimaced.

“I don’t think we have time to get you upstairs.”

“Then _MAKE_ time,” Susan grunted. “Because I’m not having this baby down here.”

“We need to take her upstairs,” Lucy chimed in, looking over Susan’s stomach at Carter.

“Oh, thank you, Lucy,” Susan said with a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry I threatened to choke you earlier.”

But Lucy did not laugh or even respond to Susan’s apology. She just stepped away from Susan’s side and looked up at her with a look of terror on her face.

“He got you in the side.”

“No, he… he got me on the shoulder,” she breathed, wincing at the stinging pain that had gone mostly ignored in favor of the baby-birthing pain.

But when she looked at Lucy again, the med student still had that same wide-eyed terror on her face.

“He got you on both.”

Susan was about to tell her she was wrong, but instead looked down. Hissing as she lifted her left arm, she felt fear freeze her heart. 

Sure enough, there was a gash in her clothes from the costal cartilage of her eighth rib inferolaterally to almost the iliac crest of her left hip. Or, in other words, from a few inches beneath her left breast down and away to the bony part of her hip.

The sight of the blood that had started to seep onto her ripped shirt and lab coat made a panicked sob escape Susan’s chest. But, she barely had a chance to look up at Lucy before she was being ushered onto a gurney. 

She’d barely laid her head down when the gurney was being rolled out of the room and around to the elevator. 

Someone shouted to page Elizabeth. Someone else shouted to page Janet Coburn. Someone else shouted to call the OR and tell them to get a baby warmer ready. 

Someone needed to page Kerry, Susan thought. 

But before she had the chance to voice the thought aloud, something bright orange caught Susan’s eye down the hall.

Instinctively, she turned her head and, given that the color was not a patient’s brightly colored t-shirt or a construction worker in uniform and instead exactly what her brain thought it was, the panicked sobs started again.

Annie and her bright orange crutches were standing just behind Kerry at the Admit desk, her winter coat on top of her _Wonder Woman_ pajamas. Suzie, who had her coat on over top of her _Lion King_ pajamas, stood right next to her, one gloved hand holding onto the hem of Annie’s coat while Pip Pop hung loosely from the other one.

Kerry was talking to Amita and Randi at the desk, likely informing them of the phone call she’d received from Lucy and urgently asking where Susan was. Even from a distance, Susan could tell that she too had her coat on over her pajamas (as evidenced by the navy blue Reebok track pants she’d found for half-price at a clearance rack at Kohl’s and swore she’d never wear in public).

Susan wanted to call out to them, to get their attention, to tell them she loved them _just in case_ something went wrong. But she couldn’t as the presence of sobs in her chest and the pain in her abdomen silenced her against her will. 

But even without the words called out towards her, the years of work in an Emergency Department made Kerry automatically turn towards the sound of shouted orders and the wheels of a gurney rolling against the tiled floor. 

The last thing Susan saw as the elevator _dinged_ to their floor and the gurney was pushed forward was Kerry’s eyes growing wide in recognition of the person on the gurney. And even from a distance and through the din, Susan could read her name on Kerry’s lips and knew the exact kind of dread in her voice. 

And that made the panicked sobs all the stronger. 

Kerry stared almost unblinkingly at the floor just ahead of her as they waited in the Surgical Waiting Area for news on Susan.

One of her arms was wrapped tightly around Suzie, who was curled up on her lap with her head nuzzled beneath Kerry’s chin. The other held Annie tight to her side.

Annie had scared Kerry a bit when they’d first sat down, for as soon as she had shrugged out of her jacket, the girl had clamped her hands firmly over her eyes and started muttering to herself under her breath. 

Distracted, Kerry didn’t immediately register what the gesture meant and started to panic, thinking Annie had hurt herself or had started sobbing. Luckily, before she intervened to ask what was wrong, Kerry recognized the words of the _Sh’ma Yisrael_ and realized Annie was praying. 

She was still muttering now, though she’d stopped covering her eyes. Though still in Hebrew, she no longer spoke the words of the _Sh’ma,_ but rather _Mi Shebeirach,_ a Jewish prayer of healing that Annie had memorized the first line of several years ago when she prayed daily for her Abba’s health to improve.

The door opened ahead of them and everyone waiting looked up - Kerry and the girls as well as Mark, who had come in when Elizabeth had been paged in, his dad David, and Elizabeth’s mom Isabelle, with whom they’d been having dinner with beforehand.

Elizabeth stepped out of the doorway. 

She was still in her scrubs and surgical cap, which immediately alarmed Kerry, but the expression on Elizabeth’s face was not one of fear or sorrow. Instead, and to Kerry’s great relief, when they made eye contact, Elizabeth smiled. 

“She’s fine,” Elizabeth informed her(/them) in a reassuring tone. “The wounds were all superficial. Nothing penetrated beyond a few millimeters.”

Kerry breathed a sigh of great relief, but Annie and Suzie looked at her, not understanding.

“It means that the cuts weren’t deep,” Kerry explained quietly. “The-The… It didn’t go in really far and hurt her or hurt the baby.”

“She’s got a lot of stitches, but she’s okay,” Elizabeth said, this time looking at the girls. “Both her and the baby are okay.”

The girls breathed their own sighs of relief. Then, Suzie perked up. 

“Does that mean the baby’s already been born?”

“Yep,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “I figured I’d take your mum back first and then come get you two in a couple minutes.”

The girls looked at Kerry, as did Elizabeth. Kerry just inhaled deeply and then nodded. 

She kissed Suzie on the head and then pulled Annie closer to her to do the same before Annie scooted over so Suzie could slide off Kerry’s lap onto the couch next to her. 

Kerry’s hands were so shaky that her attempt to grab hold of her crutch next to her resulted in her knocking it to the floor. All the adults (and Suzie) immediately moved to pick it up, but Mark beat them to it. 

He not only picked it up and handed it to her, but offered her a steadying arm, which she gratefully clung onto as she threaded her arm through the cuff of the crutch and took a deep breath. 

She didn’t need to ask him to look after the girls while she went in because as soon as he was sure she was steady, he took the seat she’d vacated next to Suzie. 

Elizabeth held the door open for her to go back, but as soon as she’d let it close behind them, Kerry immediately stopped and turned to Elizabeth. 

“Is she… Is she really okay?” Kerry said in a breathy voice barely more than a whisper. “Because when I saw her on the-the gurney downstairs, she looked… Elizabeth, she looked so scared.”

“I promise you, Kerry. She’s really okay,” Elizabeth assured her again. “They said she was scared when she first came up, but as soon as Janet determined they didn’t penetrate the uterus, she calmed considerably. Well, for a moment at least.”

“What do you mean?” Kerry asked as the fear that had momentarily relinquished its grip around her heart immediately seized again.

“Well, Janet didn’t want to labor her with wounds in her side, so she performed an emergency Cesarean. To get the baby out as quickly as possible.” Elizabeth’s serious expression softened slightly as a small smile crept onto her face. “Susan said something about getting the baby to turn so that they wouldn’t _have_ to perform a Cesarean, so she was pretty angry about having to get one anyway.”

Kerry exhaled deeply as the fear around her heart lessened. She gave a watery chuckle. 

“Yes, she… she felt pretty strongly about not wanting a C-section,” she remarked. “Does that mean she’s awake?” 

“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, nodding. “They gave her an epidural for the Cesarean, and I used a local anesthetic for the wounds.”

At the word ‘wounds,’ Kerry stiffened. Elizabeth laid a gentle hand on her upper arm. 

“They look worse than they are because they’re long,” Elizabeth explained. “But they aren’t that deep. Some parts of the cut on her side were barely more than a scratch.”

But as Kerry nodded, Elizabeth’s face fell.

“The same can’t be said for Carmen,” she said quietly. “I popped my head in to check on Robert and Peter in the other room and… and we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Kerry nodded, momentarily guilty that her concern over Susan had made her forget that Carmen was also hurt in the attack. But Elizabeth, sensing this, just turned and nodded for them to continue with her down the hallway to the room in which Susan was recovering. 

When they reached it and Kerry saw Susan in a hospital gown, alive and okay and propped up by pillows on the bed, she immediately burst into tears of relief. 

“Where the _hell_ have you been?” Susan said as Kerry rushed to her side. 

“I was...I was waiting outside with the girls,” Kerry said, tears streamed down her face as she leaned her head forward to touch Susan’s. “I-I couldn’t come in.”

“Well, I’m going to complain to whoever is in charge around here,” Susan said as she felt Kerry’s tears dampen her forehead. “Because, while you were gone, they cut a baby out of me without my permission.”

Kerry chuckled and kissed Susan’s forehead. She brushed a hand over Susan’s cheek, relishing the way she felt Susan relax slightly at her touch. 

“All that work and effort we put in to making sure that they _wouldn’t_ have to cut me open and rip it out of me,” Susan remarked, “and, when it came down to it, they still had to rip me open and cut her out of me.... And Coburn said the cuts weren’t deep. I could have pushed.”

Kerry hiccuped and then felt a smile tug at her lips. 

“Her?”

Susan looked up at her and returned a (very tired-looking) smile.

“Her.” Susan shook her head slightly, chuckling. “The girls were right… Which means they’re never going to let us forget it.”

Kerry chuckled in reply and, upon realizing that there was not a baby in Susan’s arms, looked around. 

“Where is she?”

“They’re doing their tests and cleaning all the schmutz off,” Susan informed her. When Kerry smiled at the word ‘schmutz,’ Susan shrugged. “It’s a good word.”

Comforted from her fear now that she was sure Susan was fine, Kerry turned to Elizabeth, who had been hovering near the door. 

Knowing the reason for the gesture, Elizabeth nodded wordlessly and then excused herself to fetch their older two daughters while a nurse brought them back their youngest. 

When she returned, she found Kerry sitting on the edge of the bed, fresh tears streaming down as she helped prop a pillow beneath Susan’s right arm to better support the newborn she was holding in it. 

Both girls lit up in excitement and relief at the sight of their Mommy, who was safe and okay, and the baby, who was no longer _inside_ Mommy but rather wrapped in a blanket in Mommy’s arms. 

As they ran forward towards them, both Susan and Kerry’s eyes grew wide and they immediately held up hands to stop them (Susan hissing slightly at the pain of the sutures on her back). 

“Hey, hey, hey,” she warned. “I’ve been cut open three times today. Be gentle.”

“Three times?” Annie repeated before looking up at Kerry. “I thought they said she only got cut _two_ times.”

“I got cut two times downstairs,” Susan explained. “But then the doctor up here cut me open even _more_ so they could take the baby out.”

Annie and Suzie nodded in understanding before stepping closer to the edge of the bed so that they could peer down at the baby. 

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Suzie asked as she looked at the (rather squishy-looking) baby from above. 

“It’s a girl,” Kerry replied, chuckling as Annie and Suzie looked at each other, looks of victory on both their faces.

“So, what’s her name?” Annie asked, standing on her tiptoes to see the baby over Suzie’s head.

Susan and Kerry exchanged glances and then Kerry let out a sigh. 

“Well, we don’t know yet. We want your help to figure that out.”

“Really?” Suzie asked.

Susan nodded, but Kerry rolled her eyes and let out another sigh.

“Well, Mommy and I had decided that, if the baby was a boy, we were going to name it Henry, because that was both of our dads’ names. And we decided that, if the baby was a girl, we were going to name it Mildred. After Grandma.” Kerry felt another sob nearly rise in her chest as she said the name. But, then, she chuckled. _“However,_ now Mommy thinks that she doesn’t look like a Mildred.”

“Well, Mommy _doesn’t_ look like a Mildred,” Annie replied. “She looks like a _Mommy.”_

“Good one,” Susan said with a wink in Annie’s direction.

“Well, whatever the baby’s name is, it has to end in ‘-ie,’” Suzie stated sincerely. 

Susan’s brow furrowed. 

“You mean the letter ‘e?’

Suzie was about to shake her head, but then stopped, thinking. 

“I guess...” she said slowly. “But I mean ‘-ie.’ Like Annie, Suzie… baby?”

 _“Oh._ I see,” Kerry said, nodding. “You mean she needs to have a _nickname_ that ends in I-E and a full name we only call her when she’s in trouble.”

Suzie nodded

“How about Vickie?” Annie suggested. “There’s a lady cantor at temple whose name is Victoria, but everyone calls her Vickie.”

Neither Susan and Kerry looked particularly thrilled, but both acknowledged the suggestion appropriately. 

“Our neighbor’s name is Sammie. She said it was short for Samantha,” Suzie offered.

Again, they acknowledged the suggestion, but didn’t seem sold. 

“I mean, we could go back to Mildred,” Kerry proposed. “Call her Millie.”

“Yeah, but we’d be naming her after your mom. And she never struck me as a ‘Millie.’”

“She went by Millie on occasion,” Kerry said a bit defensively. 

“Really?” Susan asked, raising an eyebrow. 

_“Well,_ admittedly only my dad was allowed to call her that…” Kerry acknowledged. “And only when she was in the right mood…”

“Could Henry end in I-E?” Annie asked. 

“Henry’s a _boy’s_ name,” Suzie told her firmly. 

“Not unless it’s short for Henrietta,” Kerry commented. 

“We are not naming our daughter Henrietta,” Susan said the moment Kerry looked at her for input. “Though, I _do_ kind of like a nickname that’s traditionally masucline.”

They all paused, thinking, for a long moment.

“There’s a girl in my class named Stevie,” Annie offered.

They thought about it for a moment before Kerry shook her head. 

“I don’t think that’s short for anything,” she said. “How about Eddie?”

“What would Eddie be short for?” Suzie asked, frowning. 

“Edith-” Kerry began.

“Or Edwina,” Susan finished, earning her an eye roll from Kerry. 

There was another moment of silence as they considered options. 

As they thought, Susan looked down at the baby girl in her arms. She gently pulled back the little bit of blanket in front of the baby’s face so she could see it better. 

“What about Charlie?” Susan mused.

At the sound of the name, the baby girl opened her eyes. Susan’s face broke into a wide grin. She stroked the baby girl’s cheek with her finger. 

“Is that you? Are you a Charlie?” She glanced up at the rest of them. “She opened her eyes when I said that.”

She looked back down at the baby who let out a gurgling coo as Susan repeated her question.

“What’s Charlie short for?” Annie asked, leaning forward slightly to try and see the baby with her eyes open.

“Charlotte,” Kerry replied as the baby cooed again.

Susan looked up, catching Kerry’s eye.

“Charlotte Mildred?”

Kerry felt that same sob in her chest she’d felt when she said her mother’s name rise at this. For some reason, the emotion felt like a seal of her mother’s approval, so she nodded.

“Charlotte Mildred.”

Susan smiled, only for the smile to be tainted by the pain in her side and stomach as the pain medicine began to wear off. Kerry noticed this and took the baby from her, settling the newest addition to their family into her arms as the newest addition’s older sisters gathered around closer to her. 

As she looked down at her newest daughter, Kerry felt someone put their hand down on her shoulder. She looked up, expecting Elizabeth or one of the nurses trying to get her attention, but there was nothing there. 

Nothing there but the very real feeling of someone with their hand on her shoulder. Almost as if they were standing behind her, looking down at the baby girl in her arms. 

Now, Kerry Weaver was a rational woman. One who did her best to keep herself grounded as much as she possibly could, to the point where she sometimes approached things _so_ rationally that she came off as detached and cold. And though she’d chalk it up to many things over the years - exhaustion, emotional distress, an overactive imagination - deep down, she could never find a reason good enough to explain why when she whispered _“Hi, Mom,”_ to the hand she felt but could not see, the hand seemed to squeeze her shoulder in reassurance. 

Charlie had apparently had enough of being held for the time being and let out a sharp cry to inform them all of this. 

As the sensation of the hand on her shoulder faded away, Kerry turned back to Charlie, chuckling as the baby girl wriggled to express her discontent. 

Carefully, Kerry stood up. The girls stepped back to give her room to set Charlie down in the clear plastic bassinet on a stand nearby, and, once Kerry had laid her down, immediately stood on their tiptoes to peer inside. 

Kerry stood behind them, stroking their hair gently as they gazed down at their new baby sister. 

“Can you believe that you were once that little?” she asked Annie, leaning down to kiss her on the top of her head. Then, she turned to kiss Suzie’s head too. “I wasn’t there when you were born, Suzie, but I imagine you were that little too.”

“I was there when Suzie was born,” Susan chimed in. “And I can confirm that she was also that little.”

“Momma,” Annie said, looking up at Kerry, “didn’t they have to cut you open so I could be born?”

“Mm-hmm,” Kerry confirmed, nodding. “Because babies are supposed to grow with their heads down and you insisted on growing _sideways._ Your head was over here and your butt was over here. And every so often, your little soccer playing feet would stretch out and _push_ really hard against my hip.”

Annie gave her a sheepish smile. 

“Sorry.”

“That’s how Charlie started out,” Susan added. “But we were able to help turn her so her head was down, so they _wouldn’t_ have to cut me open.”

“Did Aunt Chloe have to be cut open to have me?” Suzie asked Susan. 

“No, you were born the normal way.”

“What’s the normal way?”

Susan and Kerry exchanged glances. 

“You’re not going to like the answer.”

“We’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Annie and Suzie both looked like they wanted to press harder for an answer, but the looks on their mothers’ faces quashed that _real_ quick. Instead, they looked back down at Charlie. 

“What’s it called when a baby’s sideways?” Annie asked. 

“If a baby is sideways or doesn’t have their head down when they’re born, they’re called ‘breech,’” Susan informed them.

The girls nodded. Then, Annie tilted her head curiously at Charlie, and then looked up at Kerry. 

“Does being breech mean you’re more likely to have a weird hip?”

Kerry’s expression immediately hardened in concern.

“It… _can_ be,” she replied slowly, narrowing her eyes. “Why?”

“Because I think Charlie has a weird hip, too,” Annie said, looking back down at the baby and pointing at her left leg. 

Kerry immediately bent down, her brow furrowing as she tried to figure out what Annie was seeing.

“Why do you say that?”

“Her foot is turned inwards. But it’s not just her foot, because her knee is turned inwards, too,” Annie explained, pointing up Charlie’s leg from her foot to her knee. “It kind of looks like when your hip gets tired and _your_ foot turns inward.”

Charlie’s foot was indeed turned inwards in a familiar way and, adding to the concern, it didn’t appear to be causing the baby much pain.

She didn’t hear Annie comment to Suzie that when _her_ hip got tired, her foot turned outwards instead of inwards, as she looked up, making eye contact with Susan. 

“Can being breech really cause hip problems?” she asked in a serious (but surprisingly not fearful) voice.

“It’s one of the primary risk factors for hip dysplasia,” Kerry replied sincerely. 

Susan nodded slowly. 

“What are the others?”

Kerry inhaled deeply. 

“Well, apart from positive family history,” she said slowly, briefly glancing at Annie out of the corner of her eye, “the factors apart from being breech are firstborn… and female.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? Susan's fine and so is the baby who, yes, is _also_ Charlie in this fic, but is Charlotte _Mildred_ instead of Charlotte _Henrietta._ And, of course, the circumstances of her birth are slightly different. 
> 
> Thank you for all of your panicked comments, as they fill me with evil delight. I did not have nearly as many people actively reading and following "uc" when I was writing that, so I'm very proud the cliffhanger scared you all into thinking I had severely maimed and/or killed Susan off. And I'm _doubly_ proud that I could still get you all to think that even having done the same sort of thing on the other fic, which many of you have already read. Up until the other day, the reactions to [Chapter 27 in the other AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901180/chapters/47227003#workskin) were my proudest moment in all of my fanfic writing. This easily overtakes the pride of posting that and ties with the reactions to Exodos in this fic.
> 
> I'm sorry for the pain I am causing all of you, but I'm not. But I am. You all get it.
> 
> If it's any consolation, writing this causes me a fair bit of pain, too. Especially the part where Kerry feels the sensation of a hand on her shoulder, but there's no one there, and her first thought is that her mom was there with her. That was a spontaneous insertion I found myself writing as I put thoughts to paper, and I immediately made myself cry. And though I'm a crybaby and tear up incredibly easy at just about anything, that part in particular hit me hard today because, in another non-pandemic timeline, I would not be posting this today. I would likely have not written any of this, not because I would be uninspired, but because I wouldn't have the time. 
> 
> Why? Because, in another non-pandemic timeline, today would be my wedding day. 
> 
> Yep. For real. 
> 
> Right now, my mom and my sister and my friends would be getting our hair and nails done. In a couple hours, they'd help me put on my dress and my mom and I would sob as we tried to recreate the picture she took of her and her mom at her wedding several years ago. Then, my younger sister/Maid of Honor would walk me down the aisle to my beloved fiancé, who'd be waiting at the end in his new wedding suit with an excited grin on his face. I'd feel that sensation of a loved one with me, not in the form of a hand on my shoulder, but in the photographs of my late grandparents and loved ones honored in a display outside the reception.
> 
> But that's not happening today. Instead, my fiancé and I are sitting in my living room on our laptops. My sister delivered us coffee and bagels to us this morning, and my mom and stepdad wished us a "Happy-next-year-we're-getting-married-for-real Day!" via text. We'll order dinner (for delivery) from the restaurant that would have catered our reception tonight, and celebrate our love together, albeit in a very different way then planned. We'll get married this weekend next year instead.
> 
> So, thank you for your comments and your enjoyment of this fic. I'm serious when I say it probably would not exist if not for COVID, and it is definitely one of the few things that make this crisis just a bit better. The other factor, and the one I'm going to cherish a lot today despite not getting married, is the one lying on my couch right now, watching YouTube videos and making silly polls on Facebook. I was already sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him _before_ COVID. He would not be living with me if not for the pandemic, meaning if the pandemic has done anything, it has proven that even more. 
> 
> Until next time. 


	32. All In The Family Pt. 2

Annie and Suzie dozed in an overly-large armchair, their heads resting on each other as they slept. Kerry wished she’d had a camera with her to photograph the Hallmark-card moment as she was sure the display of sisterly affection would likely never arise organically if they were awake.

“I think I’m going to need to pump on the left side for a few weeks. At least until the cut heals a bit more,” Susan remarked, lifting Charlie up over her shoulder and patting her back to burp her. “Because if you’re going to have to sit up on your butt to eat, we don’t want you kicking at Mommy’s boo-boo, do we, Charlie?”

The only reply Susan received from the satiated newborn was a successful burp. But that was enough for her, so she lowered Charlie back down and kissed her on the head. 

Susan was about to carefully stand up to put Charlie back in the bassinet, when she heard the chair next to the bed scrape as its occupant shot up out of it.

“Kerry, I’ve got it,” Susan said as Kerry rounded the foot of the bed for her other side.

“You shouldn’t be straining yourself,” Kerry replied, making to pick Charlie up. “You don’t want to pull at the stitches. On your side or anywhere else.”

“I’m _not,”_ Susan said with a sigh. “And I’m going to have to pick her up eventually.”

“Well, I’m here, so you don’t have to right now.”

Susan rolled her eyes, but let Kerry pick the newborn up. And despite her bit of exasperation, she couldn’t help but smile gently at the sound of Kerry murmuring something to Charlie as she pulled the baby girl in close to her.

But Susan’s smile faded somewhat when Kerry paused, eyes darting in between the baby girl in her arms and the bassinet, which sat a few steps away from the bed. She was about to ask what was the matter when Kerry took a few shuffling steps towards it, her crutch dangling unused from her arm, and laid Charlie down inside. 

Charlie did indeed have a weird hip just as Annie had pointed out. The pediatrician had confirmed it and subsequently fitted Charlie with a Pavlik harness, a soft brace that held her hips out to the side to ensure they grew properly and didn’t dislocate further. 

“You okay?” Susan asked quietly at the hint of concern on her face.

“Hmm? Oh, yes.”

“Been a while since you carried around a ‘floppy one?’” Susan asked as a small smirk grew on her face. 

“A ‘floppy one?’”

“That’s how Suzie described the Ross twins when they were first born,” Susan explained with a chuckle. “She said that they were the ‘floppy kind of baby,’ as opposed to, say, Carlos Boulet, who is a ‘not-floppy kind of baby.’”

Kerry let out a chuckle of her own as she looked down at Charlie. 

She traced a gentle finger down the soft skin of Charlie’s arm, smiling slightly at the way the baby’s little hand wrapped around her finger. The smile grew as she remembered how fascinated she’d been by newborn reflexes in med school and how that fascination was absolutely _nothing_ compared to crying in awe the first time Annie’s tiny little hand wrapped around her Momma’s finger. 

It had been over nine-and-a-half years since that moment, and yet, here she was again, with the hand of another baby girl wrapped around her finger.

Three. _Three_ baby girls. The first by chance, the second by circumstance, and the third by plan, but all three of them theirs. Their girls. Their daughters, each born of a different mother, but all three belonging to them. (And one sometimes belonging to Michael.)

Susan had done the math at one point and figured out that the age difference between Annie and Suzie was almost exactly the same as the difference between Suzie and the new baby. When she’d asked Annie how she felt being so much older than her new baby ~~sibling~~ sister, Annie happily replied that it was perfect, because, “It’s multiplied by two and two is my lucky number!”

It certainly seemed like it, Kerry thought. Two moms, two dads, two sisters, two crutches… Two may very well be her lucky number after all. 

Charlie exhaled in her sleep and released Kerry’s finger from her grip. 

Kerry took the opportunity to trace her finger back up the baby’s arm over the chubby folds all the way back to her shoulder. But as her finger reached the strap over Charlie’s shoulder, Kerry found herself letting out a sigh before stroking the baby’s cheek once and straightening up. 

“I’m not used to this one,” she said, motioning to the harness. “Annie didn’t have it when she was this young. I guess that’s why they call it ‘Developmental Dysplasia’ now instead of ‘Congenital.’ To include when it presents this young and when it presents older.”

“She did have the cast like they mentioned, though, right?” Susan asked. “The one they said they’d do after this if this doesn’t work?”

“Mm-hmm. Though Annie was quite a bit older when she had hers.” To Susan’s surprise, Kerry let out a small chuckle. “The pediatrician that put it on told us that we might get a bit of reprieve from toddler trouble while she wore it because she wouldn’t be able to move around on her own. 

“And I wasn’t working at the time but Michael was, and it was long before my mom moved down, so I spent a lot of time alone with her. I figured it may be a bit nice to not have to worry about her running amok for a couple months. But within a day or two, I realized that the pediatrician didn’t factor in that, if a toddler can’t go _looking_ for trouble, they’ll create it themselves.”

Susan smiled. 

Kerry stepped closer to her and kissed her on the forehead before lowering her face to kiss Susan on the lips.

Susan gratefully kissed her back, relishing the feeling of Kerry’s lips on hers and the soft tickle of Kerry’s hair against her cheeks. And as she breathed in, Susan drew comfort from the smell of fresh laundry, of citrus shampoo, and as strange as it was, the scent of Kerry’s deodorant. 

She lifted her right hand to Kerry’s cheek, ignoring the prickle of pain from the IV needle taped down on the back of it in favor of the feeling of her beloved’s skin beneath her fingers. But as she lifted her left hand to do the same, the wound on her side seared in pain and she was forced to recoil. 

If the sudden sharp pain wasn’t bad enough, the look of worry Kerry was giving her made it all the worse. 

“It’s okay,” Susan reassured her in between deep breaths. “It just stings. Like when I scraped my leg on that broken laundry basket a few weeks ago.”

Taking the comment as a joke meant to mask the truth, Kerry’s concern only deepened.

“Susan,” Kerry said in a low voice, “you can say that it hurts. It’s okay.”

“I _am_ saying that it hurts. I’m telling you what it feels like,” Susan insisted. “It’s a shallow cut, but one of the shallow ones that stings for a while.”

Kerry didn’t look convinced, but didn’t say anything else. Instead, she checked her watch. 

“You’re probably due for a dressing change,” she said, unable to stop herself from assuming her professional-doctor-voice when she glanced at Susan’s chart. 

“They’ll do it in a little while,” Susan said, waving her away (with her right hand). “When they come by to check on me and Charlie.”

Kerry had no sooner responded, “I’ve got it,” before she started for the cabinets on the other side of the room. When she started pulling drawers open, Susan smirked in amusement.

“Kerry, this isn’t the ER. You can’t just start looking through everything.”

“You’re right. This _isn’t_ the ER,” Kerry remarked undeterred from her task. “I know where everything is in the ER.”

When the cabinets and drawers proved fruitless, Kerry turned her attention to a rolling cart. Susan, who was now half-convinced Kerry was doing this purely to entertain her, let her smirk grow into a full grin. 

“Could you imagine how pissed you would be if someone came downstairs and started doing this?” Susan mused. 

“Susan, you forget - I run this place,” Kerry said, raising a finger at her before turning back to the cart. “I know _exactly_ how much L&D spent on supplies last month… I just can’t tell you where they are.”

Kerry stepped around the cart and then let out a triumphant, “Ah! Here we go.”

There was silence for a moment, save for the sound of shuffling, before Kerry stepped out from around the cart on the other side. In her hand were several wrapped supplies.

“It’s in the drawer labeled ‘4x4s, Gauze, and Tape,’” she said, crossing back to her chair on Susan’s left side. “I can appreciate that.”

“You know, now that I think about it, it’s kind of surprising that you never tried to expense a label maker for ER use.”

“Oh, I _tried._ Several times. Back when I first got here,” Kerry informed her as she sat down. She slipped her arm out of the cuff of the crutch and hooked it on the side of the bed. “Mark nor Morgenstern would approve it. They told me they ‘didn’t see the point.’ Which I told them was a contributing factor as to why we needed a label maker.”

Susan rolled her eyes, grinning broadly, as Kerry carefully moved her chair closer to the bed. Once she was close enough, Susan automatically (and gently) shifted herself to the right, pulling her hospital gown back so that Kerry could see her left side

She expected Kerry to continue on talking after she scooted closer, but she didn’t. Chalking it up to her shifting from wife-mode into physician-mode, Susan let silence fall for a moment unperturbed. 

It was only after she felt the dressing removed without a new one soon applied that Susan glanced back over her shoulder. 

All of the casual playfulness Kerry had shown while locating the wound supplies had disappeared the moment she looked at the wounds themselves. Years of well-honed professional stoicism in the face of injury and illness it seemed meant nothing when the injury or illness happened to someone you loved. 

(Which was the reason the last time Susan had seen Kerry look so somber and despondent was when she knelt in front of Mildred, watching helplessly as her mother took her final breaths.)

“Oh, Susan,” Kerry said, her fingertips gingerly brushing the skin of Susan’s side around the cuts. 

Though Kerry had not yet begun to cry, Susan could hear the sobs in her voice. And, sure enough, the moment their eyes met, she could see tears glistening in Kerry’s eyes.

“They look worse than they feel.”

“And they look pretty bad.”

In truth, giving birth and the lack of clear eyeline to the wounds were not the only reason Susan hadn’t yet seen them. The blood staining her coat and shirt had terrified her more than she let on and, even now hours later, standing up to see them in the mirror was the last thing she wanted to do. 

“I remember feeling him strike me a second after I contracted,” she said quietly. “Elizabeth said that it’s deeper on the bottom than it is on the top. I can only guess that when I doubled over, it threw him off balance.”

Kerry’s finger traced down her back, an inch or so from the gash. Susan shivered, both from the sensation against her skin, but also from the sound of Kerry’s low whisper, which she couldn’t quite make out. It was only when she saw Kerry’s hair move out of the corner of her eye as she shook her head and felt her finger move back up a little bit and then continue down did Susan realize she wasn’t just following the path of the wound.

She was counting. 

Counting the number of sutures holding the skin together. How many strokes of the needle it took Elizabeth to try and undo what had been done.

Susan twitched a little when Kerry’s finger moved to the cut on her side, this time starting from the bottom near her hip and going up towards where it ended just under her breast. 

“That one scared me more,” Susan found herself admitting aloud.

“Because of its location?” Kerry asked, clearly fighting to keep her voice even.

“Yeah, but more so because I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t... ” Susan swallowed hard. “I didn’t know it was there until Lucy pointed it out. I didn’t feel it. I… I don’t know when he got me.”

Elizabeth had only had to suture the lower part of this cut as the part higher up thinned out to barely more than a scratch. But even so, it didn’t make it any less welcome. 

Kerry slid on the pair of gloves she’d picked up while searching for supplies and began to carefully dab at the leakage from the wound with a gauze pad before covering it with a clean piece of gauze and taping it down.

“I think… I think it was when I turned,” Susan thought aloud as Kerry worked. “I leaned… I was turning away from him. Turning to my left. And I think he must have grazed me when he lunged forward.”

Kerry nodded, but tears continued to roll down her cheeks. 

When she finished taping up this wound, preparing to move onto the bigger one down the left side of Susan’s back, Susan lifted her right hand to Kerry’s cheek. 

“I’m okay,” she said softly, brushing her thumb over Kerry’s cheekbone. “I’m okay. And Charlie’s okay. We’re okay.”

But though the words themselves were reassuring, Susan couldn’t be sure who she was trying to reassure more: Kerry or herself. 

She leaned forward to kiss Kerry once more as a loud rumbling grew outside the door. Charlie let out a disgruntled squeak which turned into a cry as voices began to accompany the sounds.

Kerry got up and crossed back around to scoop Charlie up before she woke her sisters up (neither of whom were particularly pleasant when they first woke up). 

As Kerry murmured soothing nonsense to the newborn, Susan’s attention was drawn to the window of the door. 

Robert Romano passed by, still wearing his surgical cap and bloody scrubs. Peter Benton followed up in the rear as they pushed the gurney no doubt carrying Carmen Vargas-Vega towards the SICU. 

“So much for twenty minutes,” Susan said with a sigh as the sound of the surgeons and gurney began to fade away.

Kerry, who had been adjusting Charlie’s little pink and blue hat back in place after kissing the baby repeatedly on the head, looked up. Susan’s eyes flicked to the door. 

“She wanted to wait until Psych got there. Said she didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone, but refused to use restraints on him.”

“Why not?” 

“She said she practiced something called Trauma-Informed Care.”

“As in the traumas inform our care?”

“That’s what I thought, but no,” Susan replied, shaking her head. “She said it had to do with preventing someone from being retraumatized and preventing them from being traumatized now.”

Kerry nodded slowly, patting Charlie gently on the back.

“It makes me wonder,” Susan continued with a yawn, “if she pulls through this, is she going to need some trauma-informed care herself?”

Kerry had a feeling Susan’s question was meant to be rhetorical, but to Kerry it was anything but. But as the reality of having not two but _three_ children settled on them the moment Annie and Suzie woke up the next morning, the question fell to the back of her mind.

And as Charlie came home for the first time and they began sorting out their new normal, newer, more pressing questions arose. But none was more pressing than why the oldest of their daughters was currently lying on her stomach digging so far back in her closet that it appeared only her feet were sticking out.

“Annie, what are you doing?”

“Just a second!” Annie called back, her voice muffled from within the closet.

“I know that the baby’s been born, but we’re not moving until the summer. You don’t need to start cleaning now.”

There was another muffled reply before Annie let out a triumphant “Ha!” and be shuffling backwards to extract herself from the closet. 

“I think I do need to clean,” she said, brushing hair out of her face. “Because there’s a lot of stuff in there.”

“What were you looking for?” 

“These!”

Annie held up a pair of forearm crutches. These were not orange, nor even green, but purple. 

“What do you need those for?” Kerry asked confusedly as she stepped into the room. 

“Well, I was thinking,” Annie said, sitting up. “I know that you and Mommy said that if Charlie wears the harness thing, her hip will get better and she probably won’t need to use crutches when she gets bigger. But I wanted to figure out if we still had the little ones just in case. And Grandma always said that you could never throw something away if it could be helpful later. And she was right!”

She considered the purple crutches for a moment. 

“And if Charlie _does_ need to use crutches later, she could use these ones like I did. And I could even teach her how to use them.”

At the look of sadness on Kerry’s face, Annie held her hands up defensively. The cuffs of the toddler crutches slipped over her wrists almost automatically.

“Or not. I don’t have to.”

“No, honey, it’s not that. It’s just…”

Kerry inhaled deeply and sat down on the floor of Annie’s bedroom. She spread her legs out in front of her and pulled Annie in close to her to hug her tightly.

“I was just thinking how lucky Charlie is to have a big sister like you and like Suzie,” Kerry said as she nuzzled her face into Annie’s neck. “No matter what happens, I know you two are always going to look out for her.”

She felt Annie’s head move as she nodded in affirmation and hugged her tighter. 

Kerry stayed like that for a long moment, before she lifted her head and set her chin on Annie’s shoulder. Annie was letting one of the purple crutches swing back and forth on her wrist. 

“They look so little,” Kerry commented as she picked up the other one (and by extension Annie’s other arm). “But I think they look so little because you’ve gotten so big.”

“I haven’t used them since before I started Kindergarten. And now I’m in the fourth grade.”

Almost the fifth grade, Kerry thought. They were halfway through February, meaning she only had a few more months before Annie was in shooting distance of middle school and Suzie would be starting Kindergarten herself.

“Do you remember the first time you used these?” Kerry asked, holding up the crutch (and Annie’s arm) in front of them.

Annie shook her head. 

“I held them up to you and asked you if you knew what they were and you said, ‘Momma.’ And I said, ‘Yes, they are like Momma’s, aren’t they? But these ones are for _you.’_ And you got really excited.

“So, we put them on you and then I went and sat on the floor a few feet away. And the physical therapist - her name was Gracie. Gracie tried to get you to use them to walk over to me, but you didn’t want to. And I told Gracie that I thought it was because you were so used to your hip hurting you when you walked that you thought these would hurt too. And we tried to tell you that it would hurt _less_ , but you were too little to understand.

“But then Gracie turned to me and said, ‘This is very unusual and I wouldn’t normally do it, but since she already identifies the crutches with you, maybe she’d use them if she saw you do it. I’ve got an extra adult one. Would you be willing to use two to show her how to do it?’

“And, of course, I said yes. I put the other crutch on and stood next to you and every time Gracie asked you to do something, I did it too. And when you saw me use them, then you did it too. And I remember that you took a couple steps and got really excited. And then you did it again and again and then out of nowhere, you just took off running. And you haven’t stopped running since.”

Kerry poked Annie in the side, making the girl squirm in her attempt to get away before she got tickled. But no further tickling occurred, just another tight squeeze. 

“So, does that mean that I _can_ teach Charlie how to use the crutches if she needs them?” Annie asked, brushing a few fallen hairs back behind her ear. “Because you said that I learned how to do it by watching you, so she could learn by watching me.”

“That is true,” Kerry acknowledged, “but I think that if Charlie needed them too that she’d learn from me.”

“But _why?”_ Annie whined, though she was smiling. “You don’t even use two!”

“Oh, I see. You think you have more experience than I do.”

“Uh, _yeah.”_

Kerry shook her head, chuckling, before she buried her face in Annie’s neck again.

“My baby,” she murmured into Annie’s hair.

“But I’m not a baby anymore.”

“Annie, my love, you will always be my baby. Even when you are all grown up and taller than me, you will still be my baby.”

“You think I’m going to be taller than you?” Annie asked hopefully.

Kerry set her chin on Annie’s shoulder again. 

“Well, your Daddy is very tall, so I think you’re going to end up about Mommy’s height.”

There was shuffling outside in the hall. Both Annie and Kerry looked up to see Suzie watching. 

Automatically, Kerry held out a hand towards Suzie, who immediately rushed over to her Momma’s side so that she too could be hugged tightly.

“Are those for Charlie?” Suzie asked, pointing at the crutches. “I thought you said she wasn’t going to need them.”

“She probably won’t,” Kerry assured her. “But Annie wanted to see if she still had these ones in case Charlie needed them later on.”

“If Charlie needs them too, then I’m gonna be the only one who _doesn’t.”_

Kerry almost chuckled at the jealousy in Suzie’s voice. If only she could go back in time and tell her lonely teenage self who was so deeply ashamed of her hip and her crutch that someday one of her kids would whine that they _didn’t_ get to have a weird hip and crutches.

Kerry pulled Suzie close to her and kissed her on the head. 

“My other baby,” she murmured as she hugged Suzie tight to her side. 

“But now you’ve got another baby, too!” 

“That’s true,” Kerry said, kissing Suzie’s cheek. “I’m going to need more hands to hug you all at once, won’t I?”

Then, Kerry paused, thinking. 

“I’ve got an idea,” she said, letting go of both girls and standing up. “Come with me.”

Suzie and Annie exchanged glances, but nevertheless got to their feet and followed Kerry down the hall to the living room. 

Kerry made for the bassinet where Charlie lay sleeping, stopping only to kiss her napping wife on the forehead. Then, she scooped the baby up, holding her close to her chest as she crossed to the other couch. 

Keeping Charlie held to her chest with one hand, she waved the girls over to her and patted the couch. Annie and Suzie climbed up onto the couch next to her, one on each side. 

“There we go,” Kerry said, smiling softly as the girls cuddled closer to her. “Now, I’ve got all three babies.” 

“Which one is your favorite?” Suzie asked. 

“You’re all my favorite in different ways,” Kerry replied. “Like you’re my favorite _blonde-haired_ daughter. And you’re my favorite _red-haired_ daughter.”

“So, Charlie’s gonna have to have brown hair,” Annie stated. “Or else you’re gonna have to choose again.”

Kerry chuckled. 

“Well, Mommy’s hair is actually brown, so Charlie’s might be brown too,” she said, before whispering, “She only pretends it’s blonde.”

The girls gasped as if they’d been let in on some great conspiracy. Even Charlie let out a little sound, even though she was only four days old and therefore had no concept of ‘color’ or ‘hair’ and only a vague concept of ‘Mommy.’ (If only because ‘Momma’ wouldn’t breastfeed her… even when she asked nicely.)

As Annie leaned her head on her Momma’s shoulder, Kerry was reminded of the unseen hand she’d felt while holding Charlie at the hospital. 

“Grandma made me promise her before she died that I would take care of all of my girls. Meaning the two of you and Mommy. But now that promise means Charlie too, doesn’t it?” she asked quietly as she stroked Suzie’s hair. “She’d have given _anything_ to have three babies, but she only got to have the one. So, that makes it all the more special that I get to have three. I think it would make Grandma happy.”

“When you and Mommy decided that Charlie’s middle name should be Grandma’s name, it made me kind of sad because Grandma never got to meet Charlie,” Annie said, looking up at Kerry. “But then I thought about something Grandma told me once about ghosts and how we have ghosts inside us of people who have died. And I realized that, even though Charlie never got to meet Grandma, she’ll know Grandma because there’s Grandma in you and me and Suzie and Mommy and Daddy.”

Kerry felt herself tear up. Careful not to bother Charlie, Kerry leaned over to kiss Annie on the head. 

“You’re very right.”

Annie smiled for a moment before her expression grew serious.

“When she first said that, it really scared me,” she said sincerely. “But I’m not scared anymore.”

Kerry smiled as she wiped away fresh tears. When she looked up, she found Susan awake and watching the three of them with a soft smile on her face. 

When Kerry returned to the office on Monday morning, she would need to deal with the immediate aftermath of the events that had unfolded the night of the 14th. But that could wait a few more days.

They were home. They were together. They were okay. 

And, for the moment, that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feasibly, this could have been split into two chapters, but that would have ruined my carefully planned chapter order. 
> 
> This took a few more days to write than expected because I ended up changing some stuff around. I was hesitating on writing, which almost always indicates that I didn't like something. I toyed with a few different ideas, but then today I got inspired and shuffled some things around timeline was. Nothing too big is changing, but I figured out a flow that felt better to me. I'm not really a writer who outlines every little detail because I like to see what happens as I write, but I've found that keeping a list of chapter titles in my little notebook helps me figure out the pace of the writing and gives me a reminder of what I want to have happen. They all start off in pencil and get re-written in pen once they've been written and published.
> 
> Not too much to say about this chapter other than it 1) makes me want to cuddle babies and 2) makes me want to cuddle with my own Momma. Unfortunately, there's a plague. And though I have my fiancé around to cuddle with, it's not quite the same as cuddlign with my Momma and also is not really preferable at the moment because we're living in a third-floor apartment with no air conditioning. It's just too damn hot for that. 
> 
> Hope you all are doing well! Until next time.


	33. Trauma-Informed Care

Kerry had sat down in front of the computer for a reason, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember why. And glancing at the desk nearby was no help, as the counter on either side of her was clear. 

That ruled out entering patient information into the electronic health record. And when she clicked over to her email, there was nothing new to read nor anything in progress of being typed that she had accidentally zoned-out on. 

She glanced up at the board on the wall to her right, but nothing had been added to it since the last time she checked. Instead of offering a reprieve and some peace and quiet in the ER as it usually did in these rare instances, it just put Kerry more on edge. 

Sighing, she rolled her neck from side to side and stood up from her stool. She stretched again for a moment before threading her arm through the cuff of her crutch and starting in the direction of the trauma room. 

As Kerry contemplated whether her old stand-by of cleaning and organizing things could settle her nerves, Lucy passed by her, eyes averted as she made for Mark. 

Both Lucy and Carter had avoided her as much as they could lately. For the most part, this didn’t cause much issue, given that Kerry was only in the ER twice a week and worked from home as much as possible the other days (as County’s HR department was still determining whether she was allowed to claim FMLA for Charlie’s birth when there was already one mother on record claiming the same thing). But during the shifts they did work together, interactions quickly grew strained or awkward.

It was to be expected given how hard Lucy had taken the events of February 14th. She viewed it as her fault, having chosen to hand Carmen over to Susan instead of staying with her patient, which led to them both being attacked. Her guilt was so strong that Kerry hadn’t even bothered to lay into her about accidentally holding onto Carmen’s pager after Carmen gave it to her to page Psych, which prevented Carmen from paging them again (or paging an SOS). 

Carter, on the other hand, expressed some guilt, but tried to shrug off most of the responsibility onto Lucy. This led to a telling off so bad that no one dared come close to Kerry for a solid hour following the end of the rant in fear that she would come for them next. 

Kerry happened to turn the corner at the end of the hallway just as Susan came in through the Ambulance Bay doors, Charlie tucked into a wrap carrier on her chest. 

“Hey, Dr. Lewis,” Randi greeted, glancing up from her seat at the desk. “You’re not coming back to work already, are you?”

“Oh, _hell_ no,” Susan said firmly as she walked back behind the desk. “I wanted to drop in and say hi before we go upstairs.”

Those behind the desk all offered greetings and gathered around as Susan began (carefully) unwrapping the baby carrier from her chest. 

“Oh, Dr. Lewis, she’s adorable,” Lucy said, standing on her tiptoes to see over the others.

“Thank you. I made her myself.”

“Looks like her sisters had some fun decorating her harness for her,” Mark commented.

He nodded at the harness, which had been plain white when he’d visited the week before, but now bore various colorful designs seemingly drawn with Crayola® Washable Markers.

“Well, we can’t be sure it was them,” Susan said flatly. “Because even though the word _Charlie_ is written in Annie’s handwriting and Suzie has been drawing this flower on everything for two months, when I asked them, ‘Who drew on the baby?’ no one seemed to even know the baby had been drawn on. So, without a confession, I can’t rule out Kerry.”

“How long does she have to wear it?” Dave asked from his place behind Connie (who, like Haleh and Lily, looked raring to snatch Charlie away for the chance of baby cuddles). 

“At minimum, six weeks. At max, six months. We get it checked every week, so we’ll know where we stand in about a month.” Susan kissed Charlie on the head. When she spoke again, her voice was higher as she spoke to/for Charlie. “Say, ‘We’re gonna go see the doctor and then we’re gonna go see Carmen and then we’re gonna go walk around Target because Mommy needs to get out of the house!’”

“Is Carmen taking visitors?” Lucy asked, perking up. 

“To be honest, I don’t know,” Susan said with a shrug. “Kerry said she was downgraded from ‘serious’ to ‘stable,’ but she’s not off the vent yet. But ‘stable’ is usually when they start to let non-family visitors in, so I figured I’d at least pop in to say hi.”

Susan hoisted Charlie up on her shoulder, wincing at the tug of the sutures on her side. 

“But first,” she said, exhaling deeply, “someone needs to take these stitches out of me. Where’s the mean redhead?”

“Uh, last I saw, Dr. Weaver went that way,” Dave replied, nodding towards the trauma rooms. 

Susan’s mouth fell open as she gave him a look of (feigned) offense. 

_“Dave,”_ she scolded. “Why would you think that’s who I was talking about?”

“But who else could you have been-”

“It’s a trap, Dave,” Mark said, rolling his eyes at Susan. “You’re not supposed to agree with her.”

“I can’t believe you would say something like that. And in front of her own child, too,” Susan said, tossing the (un)wrap(ped) carrier over her other shoulder. “Come on, Charlie. Let’s go see Momma and get away from the mean doctor.”

“Dr. Lewis, you said it first!”

“Because I’m _allowed_ to,” Susan called back as she started out from behind the desk.

She found the mean redhead, ahem, _Kerry_ in the drug lock-up, putting away bottles of medication. When she looked up and saw Susan and Charlie, she nearly did a double take.

“Hi.”

“Hi. Would you like to say hi to Charlie and then take my stitches out?”

“I feel like you should have Coburn do that…” Kerry said slowly. 

“Not _those_ ones,” Susan said, shaking her head. “I meant the other ones.”

When Kerry nodded in understanding, Susan took a step back to give her room to come out of the drug lock-up. And within a moment of her stepping out into the hallway, Charlie was in Kerry’s arms. 

“Hello, honey,” she murmured, kissing the baby’s cheek.

Kerry arranged Charlie against her left shoulder before stepping forward down the hallway. Susan followed on her left side, partly because she’d long ago developed a habit of always walking on Kerry’s left side (should a discreet hand-holding opportunity arise), but also because it meant she could make faces at Charlie while they walked. 

Though Susan knew Charlie was too young to smile back at her and that the smile the baby was giving her was likely just gas, Susan liked to think that maybe her sisters standing over her bassinet smiling and making silly faces at her all the time _might_ just speed up the process.

“I don’t think I can hold her and take out your stitches at the same time. I mean, I probably could, but I _shouldn’t,”_ Kerry remarked as she shrugged her arm out of her crutch and set it against the wall in one of the exam rooms. “But I figure I can lay her on her back on the bed and put pillows on both sides of her so she doesn’t roll over. What do you think, Susan?... Susan?”

Susan was standing a few feet inside the door, stock still. Her eyes darted back and forth as if she was seeing things that Kerry couldn’t.

The light was off. 

No, the light was _on._

She was alone in the dark. 

No, Kerry was there, standing in front of her.

She was still pregnant. 

No, she wasn’t. 

She was on the floor, the body of her attacker under her, writhing as he tried to get to the knife so he could stab her again. 

No, she was standing up. The only thing she could feel was the warmth of the heating vent above her. 

Sweat began to bead on her forehead. From the exertion, no doubt. The exertion of fighting, of pinning him down, of the contractions. 

No, she wasn’t fighting. She wasn’t contracting. The baby was born. The baby was born and right there in front of her in Kerry’s arms. 

She was shaking from the pain. 

No, she was shaking from the.. 

From the…

…

…

...

Why _was_ she shaking?

Why couldn’t she breathe?

Was she… Was she safe or not?

“Susan? Susan?”

Susan felt a hand on her shoulder and jerked back. Pain ripped through her side and stomach, which only served to worsen the flashback. 

“Susan, are you okay?” 

Susan blinked several times. Her breath was shallow, which was likely contributing to why she suddenly felt dizzy. 

“Susan, can you talk to me? Are you alright?”

Susan blinked again. 

Kerry was standing in front of her, Charlie still held to her shoulder. She looked as panicked as Susan’s nervous system felt. 

“We need to go somewhere else,” Susan whispered. “We need to… We need to go to another room.”

Kerry opened her mouth to ask again when she realized which room she’d unthinkingly led them to.

Curtain Three.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize- Come on.”

Leaving her crutch where it rested against the wall as she rushed to Susan’s side meant she couldn’t move as fast as she would have preferred. But that didn’t seem to matter at the moment as she gently turned Susan around and led her down the hall to the Suture Room, as far away from Curtain Three as her hip would let her go unassisted. 

Susan laid down on the bed Kerry led her to, turning onto her right side. Kerry laid Charlie down on the bed next to her, sighing in relief as Susan moved her left hand forward to hold onto the baby. 

But as Kerry gathered together the supplies necessary to remove Susan’s sutures and nudged a stool over to the edge of the bed, her heart sank at the sound of Susan breathing heavily. 

She reached out to stroke Susan’s arm in reassurance, but her hand hesitated mid-air. 

Should she be touched right now? Would it be helpful or would it make her jerk away again?

“I’m so sorry,” Kerry said in a low voice. “I… I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

Susan breathed in deeply and then exhaled. She moved a light finger back and forth over Charlie’s belly, making sure to avoid her soon-to-be belly button as it healed. 

“It’s okay,” Susan replied quietly, though she wasn’t entirely sure that it was. “I just… It caught me off guard. I wasn’t… I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Maybe you should talk to someone.”

“It’s only been two weeks. If it’s still happening when I get back, then I’ll talk to someone.”

Kerry nodded and scooted the stool closer. 

When Susan noticed her pulling on gloves, she lifted her shirt up like she was going to pull it off. She shivered when Kerry dabbed alcohol over the sutures before raising the suture scissors to them. 

For a few moments, there was silence save for the _snip_ of the scissors as Kerry slowly removed each of the individual sutures from the wound down Susan’s back and Charlie’s occasional gurgle. When all twenty-six of the ones on her back had been removed, Kerry then nudged Susan’s elbow forward a bit more so she could attend to the fifteen sutures on Susan’s side.

Susan stroked Charlie’s cheek, watching as the baby girl’s rooting reflex turned her head in the direction of Susan’s finger. Her little lips found Susan’s fingertip, but, seeing as sucking on it did not produce any milk, she let out a little cry of indignation at having been fooled. 

“I should have told you that I didn’t want to go in there.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Kerry apologized again. “I promise I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t even think about it.”

“It’s not your fault. I wasn’t paying attention either,” Susan’s brow furrowed. “But… But there’s part of me that’s not sure I could have told you I didn’t want to go in before… that.”

“Not wanting to return to the site of something traumatic is what the _DSM_ considers an avoidance symptom.”

“You’ve been reading the _DSM?”_ Susan asked, frowning. “Kerry, if you’re planning on changing specialties, I’d appreciate you letting me know that.”

“I’m not changing specialties,” Kerry said, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. “I’ve just been reading a lot about trauma lately. And it’s a… a different kind of trauma than I’m used to reading about.”

Kerry clipped the last suture. Once Susan felt the (odd) sensation of the last nylon thread pulled out, she pulled her shirt back down. 

Or at least she did until she sat up and settled Charlie into her arms, at which point the baby girl immediately started rooting around to feed. And, given that she was secluded in the Suture Room with no one but her baby and her wife (who had seen her boobs plenty of times before), she lifted her shirt back up to let Charlie eat.

“I keep thinking about what you said about whether Carmen’s going to need trauma-informed care if she pulls through this. And how you said she didn’t want to restrain the patient because she was worried about causing more harm to him if she did.” Kerry let out a bit of a huff. “I bet I could gather every ER doc, every psychiatrist, every _physician_ I know together and ask them what they would have done in that situation, and not _one_ of us would have even thought about that.”

Kerry paused for a moment and then shook her head. 

She rose from her stool and began cleaning up the supplies and the waste. Susan watched her, wondering for a long second as to why Kerry seemed to be moving so slow. 

“I’ve been thinking about the patient,” Kerry said, exhaling as a twinge in her hip forced her to retake her seat on the stool. “The patient who… who did this.”

She paused, paying attention to Susan’s expression to determine whether she should go on or not. When Susan didn’t immediately tense or twitch uncomfortably, but rather looked a bit curious, Kerry continued on.

“When I was asking Lucy about what happened and how she came to be holding onto Carmen’s pager, she told me that Carmen asked her to leave the room because the patient was agitated. He’d been pointing at Lucy and saying, ‘They hurt me. They want to hurt me.’ So, Carmen gave Lucy the pager and encouraged her to leave so she could try and de-escalate him.

“And what really got me was that Lucy said he didn’t appear altered until the LP. And it made me wonder… Was that what triggered it? If he was experiencing first-episode psychosis, was that what made the episode happen? Because to us, it’s just a test. It’s just a means to extract cerebrospinal fluid to rule out infection, but… but if you think about it from a patient’s point-of-view, we’re sticking a needle in their spine.”

Charlie squeaked as her head moved and she came loose. Susan carefully adjusted her on her lap, one hand supporting the baby’s back and one holding her head up.

“I’ll be honest,” Susan said as she tried to reconnect the newborn to her breast. “When Carmen said she didn’t want to use restraints because she worried it would cause him stress, I immediately thought about Haldol as the next option. But when I thought about it more, I started to feel a bit guilty because it was the same sort of thing. Use of restraints, forcible medication - either way, force is involved. And how often do we call for either of those things not because we’re concerned the patient is going to hurt themselves or someone else, but just because they’re not acting the way we want them to?”

Kerry nodded. 

“Everyone upstairs - HR, finance, the Board - they’re always talking about our image and how we can promote an image of ‘a center of hope and healing.’ And they keep saying that it’s part of my job to promote that image,” Kerry explained. “But… But they don’t seem to care if we actually _are_ a center of hope and healing. They just want us to look that way. Which is why they approved $250,000 from the discretionary fund to buy metal detectors and improve our security, but… but that doesn’t feel like safety to me. It feels like surveillance.

“And I keep wondering how many patients have come here in search of hope and healing and will never come back? Because the way we treated them, their experience being treated here, ended up worse than what was ailing them? What happens to them? What do they do?”

Silence settled between them again as they considered the questions. 

“I think I know the answer,” Susan said after a long moment. When Kerry raised her eyebrows in questions, Susan said, “They become your mom.”

Kerry frowned. 

“What do you mean?”

“You told me a long time ago that your mom hated hospitals because she always equated them with her miscarriages. Doctors, medicine, the ER… Even when you grew up and became a doctor and they took on more positive connotations in general, when it came down to it, she was always going to connect it to her babies dying. And even though that happened… What? Sixty years ago? Even though it happened sixty years ago, she gave up on medical care for the rest of her life. Talk about an avoidance symptom.”

The way Kerry stared at her for a long moment made Susan grimace in expectation of Kerry forcefully correcting her. 

“I never thought of it like that, but you’re right,” Kerry said simply after a moment’s thought. “Whenever I tried to make her see a doctor or-or at least let _me_ take a look at her… I just thought she was being stubborn.”

“Well, I mean it was your mom,” Susan said, shrugging carefully so as not to interrupt Charlie. “So, that’s not _that_ unreasonable a thing to assume.”

Kerry let out a small chuckle of acknowledgement, but the truth that her mother’s long-standing dislike of medicine was a trauma reaction seemed like a missing piece, not just in her plan to prevent future events like this one, but in her understanding of Mildred Weaver. 

“I knew that. Even when I was younger than Suzie, I knew that you didn’t ask Momma about the babies,” Kerry thought aloud. “I asked her once, a long time ago. It’s one of my earliest memories. I remember asking her if they… if they had names. And she just kind of went blank. It scared me from ever asking her again. Even as an adult.”

Charlie let out a small chirp indicating she was full, so Susan heaved her up over her shoulder to burp her.

“I don’t think I ever told you this,” Kerry said quietly, “but for the first month after she died, I kept having this recurring dream that I could save her. But… But we weren’t in the living room. We were in an ER. And she wasn’t old. She was… Well, she was young in a long dress and all sort of sepia tone. She looked like she did in the photo of her and my dad on their wedding day, which I guess is how my mind views her as ‘young.’”

“Back when the world was in black and white?”

“Mm-hmm,” Kerry said with a chuckle, before a more contemplative expression fell over her features. “But you know how in dreams there can be these… these truths? Like these very strong truths that you just know? Well, in these dreams, I just _knew_ that I was saving her from the heart attack. But when she was in front of me, she wasn’t having a heart attack. She was miscarrying. And yet, I knew that if I saved her then, I was saving her from the heart attack later.”

“By saving the babies?” Susan asked as she took her own baby from her shoulder and held her to her chest.

Kerry shook her head. 

“No. By just… by just making sure I kept her safe and comfortable. And reassuring her that everything was going to be okay.”

Susan rubbed Charlie’s back gently for a moment. As she watched Kerry fall into thoughtful silence, a small smirk grew on her face.

“Do you need a piece of paper and a pen? Because you have your ‘I’ve got an idea’ look on your face?”

Kerry looked at her for a moment.

“I think I need to call a meeting of the Board of Directors.”

Susan’s smirk grew into a grin as she rose from the bed and picked up the wrap carrier from where it lay on the bed.

“And I think we need to go to our appointment,” she said, holding the carrier out to Kerry. “Would you?”

Kerry nodded quickly and helped wrap the fabric snugly around Susan’s middle so Charlie was well supported, but in a hip-safe position. The last thing she’d want was for the pediatrician to think they weren’t taking the harness seriously (which was now likely no matter what they did thanks to the artwork of the Lewis-Levin sisters). 

Once Charlie was comfortably situated on her chest, Susan offered Kerry her arm for support so she could go back and get her crutch from where she’d left it in Curtain Three. 

Susan waited outside while Kerry went in to get it, contemplating her earlier reaction as she rubbed Charlie’s back. Kerry then walked them to the elevators, sneaking a kiss for Charlie (pretending it was also for Susan) before the elevator _dinged_ to their floor and the pair went off upstairs. 

Kerry didn’t linger at the elevators for long, and instead turned for Admit. 

After ensuring there wasn’t anyone on the Board in need of her attention, she grabbed a pen and _several_ pieces of paper and sat down at the counter again. Within twenty minutes, she’d scribbled a list of preliminary thoughts and a few action steps. And by the time the Ambulance Bay doors flew open an hour later, she was knee deep in a MEDLINE search on traumatic stress and its effect on health outcomes.

“Kerry, can you take the next one?” Mark called out. “I’ve got this one, but they said there should be two more. Can you get it?”

“Yeah. Just a second.”

As Pickford and Olbes burst in, calling out the bullet on the GSW on the gurney they were rolling in, Kerry jotted down the title of the next article to read on the paper next to her - _Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study -_ before tossing her pen aside in favor of gloves and a trauma gown.

Randi, who’d noticed Kerry’s frantic-nearly-frenzied scribbling, gathered up the papers to tuck safely away, knowing the Chief of Staff would be pissed if something happened to them. But being who she was, the desk clerk couldn’t help peek at the top of the first page to see what it was Kerry had been so focused on. 

_The Trauma Center_ ™ _at County General Hospital_

_Hope and Healing through Trauma-Informed Medical Practice and Research_

Considering whatever ‘Trauma-Informed Medical Practice’ was was far above her paygrade, Randi paid it little mind as she slid the pages into a manila folder and slid it into a drawer. Her disinterest in the subject matter didn’t quite apply to all of it though, as the line underneath _Hope and Healing…_ intrigued her, though she didn’t dare ask Kerry about it when the physician came looking for the paperwork later. 

The line piquing Randi’s interest wouldn’t make it into the final proposal that Kerry submitted to the Board three weeks later, but it would remain written on a Post-It on Kerry’s desk upstairs as a reminder as the headache of planning, funding, and staffing The Trauma Center™ began in mid-March.

_In honor of Mildred J. Weaver_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was looking at tips for authors interested in submitting their debut novels for publication, one editor said something along the lines of 'One thing I hate most is when a character's dialogue is really preachy and I know it's because the author wants to Inform The Reader of things. Ugh, it's terrible. Just don't.' And when I read that, my first thought was, 'Well, _duh_ _._ The character is supposed to be preachy because this entire book is about how fucked the American healthcare system is and she is trying to keep this hospital open when it's doomed to fail.'
> 
> (That book, which was loosely inspired by "uc" and eventually morphed into a fully-formed novel called _On Prosperity and Health_ about the new Chief of Staff of a failing hospital in rural Ohio that tries everything she can to prevent it closing and leaving the town and surrounding area without healthcare will not see publication anytime soon because I wrote it in the fall of 2019 and, silly me, did not have any idea that the entire world was going to flip upside down in March 2020. Meaning that the entire third part of the book, which takes place between March and May 2020, now exists in an AU of... reality.)
> 
> But in all seriousness, I hope that when I try to introduce topics like healthcare administration or trauma-informed care, it doesn't come off as too preachy. I mean, Kerry Weaver is saying it, so it will always come off a _little_ bit preachy, but hopefully discussion of these kinds of topics feels like it fits into the story and sounds like the show. As in, I hope introducing these kinds of topics doesn't jar you out of the story like I'm trying to Teach Something instead of integrating these (very real) subjects into fanfiction about (not real) doctors in a hospital.
> 
> Also, I hope that the formatting of Susan's flashback added to the experience of reading it and didn't throw you off too much. It came to me while I was writing it that she's having these two warring realities in her head in that moment and I could show that through the way the words were formatted. And that when she started to come back to what was happening in that moment, the realities kind of... fused together in the middle. That's what I was going for at least. Hopefully, it came off like that. 
> 
> I need to do some homework and then we'll get into Season 7! Which unfortunately means that several characters are going to need some trauma-informed care...
> 
> Until next time!


	34. Issues of Mortality

In the six months it took between Kerry proposing her plan for the creation of The Trauma Center™ in March and its officially opening in September, things in the Weaver-Lewis-Levin household were remarkably quiet. 

Susan had a tense first few days back at work in mid-May after being out on maternity leave, but thankfully, no further flashbacks in Curtain Three. Suzie turned five a few days later, which threw both Susan and Kerry for a loop given that she was now the age Annie was when they had met. 

As soon as school ended in June, they tearfully said goodbye to the ranch and moved into a bigger house ten streets away. Annie immediately claimed the ground-floor bedroom without knowing that it was meant to be the master bedroom, but her moms gave it to her anyway, figuring it was better to be upstairs with the nursery. And, best of all, their new house was so close to Michael and Adam’s that they could see their backyard from their new wrap-around porch. 

The only truly stressful occurrence was mid-August when all three daughters visited the pediatrician. Charlie and Suzie both required multiple immunizations, which was hard enough, but definitely not helpful when the parent who brought them had her own fear of needles. Annie was spared from shots that day, but had to get her hips x-rayed as she was going to start puberty soon and Kerry wanted to ensure that they paid close attention to her growth plates as she grew so that her left leg didn’t end up shorter than the right one. 

(Annie submitted to this willingly, though, as she’d heard her mother and grandmother both talk about Kerry’s experience with the external fixator to lengthen her own left leg during the summer of 1977 and she had no interest in having to endure the same procedure.)

Charlie had been cleared from the Pavlik harness at that visit and showed no further hip problems at her check-up a month later. And while this was a cause for celebration, it did not, as Susan suggested, result in Kerry getting rid of the purple toddler crutches _just in case_ it reappeared somewhere closer to the age it did for both her and Annie. (It wouldn’t.)

School started at the end of August for both Annie _and_ Suzie, meaning they now only had one child in need of daycare. Soccer and dance class were now year-round activities, meaning they only got a brief reprieve before the next season/ class schedule started and they were back to the neverending hauling about of children.

When September finally rolled around and The Trauma Center™ opened to the public, Kerry realized that managing hospital operations at the same time she was trying to launch a new research institute was more than a full-time job. Not willing to sacrifice either of those things or her family, she made the executive decision not to work in the ER for the next three months in an effort to expend her time and energy in the wisest way possible. 

But even though September turned to October turned to November, just because she had seldom lately been a fixture in the ER didn’t mean she wasn’t a topic of conversation.

“We seriously need a sternal saw,” Susan remarked as she and Mark walked out of Trauma One, removing their gowns and goggles. “Every second we have to spend hammering away at someone’s sternum is a second we’re not treating them.”

“You should talk to your girlfriend.”

“For the last time, Mark,” Susan said, rolling her eyes, “she is not my girlfriend, she’s my _wife._ And I can’t ask her that because she’s not in charge of the ER. We should be asking Tonya.”

Mark considered this for a moment and then shrugged. Then, as luck would have it, a short middle-aged Black woman in a white coat rounded the corner. 

“Hey, Tonya,” Mark called out to Tonya Duncan-Taylor, their Chief of Emergency Services. 

Tonya slowed to a stop in front of them, eyebrows raised in question.

“Can we have a sternal saw?” 

“Why don’t you ask her girlfriend? I’m sorry. _Her wife,”_ Tonya said, nodding towards Susan. But then she shook her head. “I’m kidding. Dr. Weaver and I have had a long talk about the ER budget recently and, apparently, in order to get the Board to approve her plans for the stuff upstairs, she had to agree to all that.”

Tonya motioned to the new metal detectors and recent renovations to the ER, including the removal of walls around the desk and the introduction of a new security desk near chairs. 

“And even though she nor I particularly wanted any of that,” Tonya continued, “we got it anyways. Which means we don’t get any presents for a while.”

Tonya gave them one last shrug and then continued on to see her patient. As she rounded the corner, Elizabeth rounded the other way, her curls preceding the rest of her. 

She greeted them both with an exhausted smile. But before she could say anything, Susan had an idea. 

“Elizabeth, you’re a surgeon.”

“Nice of you to notice.”

“Can we borrow the sternal saw from Surgery sometimes?” Susan asked, ignoring Elizabeth’s remark. “Like a few times a week? Or, maybe, all the time?”

“If the ER is in need of a sternal saw, why don’t you ask Kerry?” 

Susan threw her arms up in exasperation. 

“Is that all I am to you people?” she asked with a huff. “A means with which to communicate with Kerry?” 

“To communicate what with Kerry?” a voice asked from behind them.

Kerry, looking rather worse for wear, drew even with them right as Mark got called away to see another patient. 

“Can we have a sternal saw?” Susan asked (very aware of Elizabeth’s smirk).

“No,” Kerry answered flatly. But as she made to continue on, she paused and turned back, her eyes closed. “What… What are you going to do with it?”

“What are we going to do with it?” Susan repeated, frowning. “Thoracotomies. What _else_ would we use it for? And why the need to ask me like I’m Suzie trying to put crayons in the toaster?”

Kerry just waved her away and continued on to her next meeting. 

Elizabeth looked at Susan curiously.

“Suzie tried to put crayons in the toaster?”

“Suzie is a very inquisitive child who asks a lot of questions about the world around her, like ‘Is it possible to swing so high she flips over the top rail of the swingset?’, ‘If she were to balance on a pair of crutches, could she walk up walls?’, and ‘What happens if you put crayons in the toaster?’” Susan replied simply. “And most of the time when she asks these questions, she must then be stopped from trying to find out the answer.”

Elizabeth chuckled for a second, before stopping suddenly and holding a hand to her chest. Then, without warning, she turned and took off for the bathrooms.

Susan, taken aback both by the sudden departure and the fact that Elizabeth had not interrupted her to ask from where (or from whom) Suzie managed to get ahold of a pair of crutches, took off after her. 

She found Elizabeth, or, rather, she _heard_ Elizabeth on her knees in one of the stalls, seemingly puking her guts out. 

“You okay?” Susan asked when the retching stopped for a long moment. 

“Yes, I’m… I’m fine,” Elizabeth replied weakly. “I just had something… Whew. I must have just had something rotten for lunch.”

Susan waited outside the stall as the toilet flushed and Elizabeth stepped out, looking weary. She continued to watch her in the mirror as Elizabeth washed her hands. 

“Weren’t you feeling kind of sick yesterday?” Susan asked, narrowing her eyes. “And the day before that? And the day before that?”

“I’ve been feeling kind of… off for a few days,” Elizabeth admitted as she reached for a paper towel. “Means I should probably stop relying on the cafeteria for lunch.”

Susan shrugged in acknowledgement, but that didn’t stop a smirk from curling her lips. 

“Well, you know what happened the last time _I_ felt sick for several days in a row?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow in question. When Elizabeth replied by frowning, Susan said, “Nine months later, they cut a baby out of me.”

Elizabeth’s eyes grew wider for a moment before she quickly shook her head, her curls bouncing. 

“I’m not pregnant. I _can’t_ be,” she stated firmly. “I’m on the pill and we always use a condom, just in case.”

“And you’ve taken the pill every day as prescribed?”

Elizabeth began to nod, but just before she did, she stopped herself. 

“Except…”

“Except what?”

Elizabeth sucked in air. 

“Except the night he proposed,” Elizabeth said slowly. “I forgot to pick up my refill from the pharmacy and…”

“And you two…”

Susan inserted her index finger into her cupped hand and raised her eyebrows. Elizabeth did not confirm or deny this, but instead just bit her lip. 

“Right,” Susan said, smiling. “You stay here and take a breather and I’m going to go get a cup for you to pee in.”

Despite Elizabeth’s argument, she did, indeed, pee in a cup and then followed Susan to an empty exam room for an ultrasound. And after a minute of moving the Sonosite over her jellied belly, they heard the heartbeat.

Elizabeth laid her head back against the pillow of the bed and exhaled. 

“How did this happen?”

“Well,” Susan began as she skinned off her gloves, “when two people love each other-”

“Oh, shut up, Susan.”

Susan held up her hands defensively, but the direction did nothing to remove the smile from her face. 

Elizabeth just laid there for a moment, thinking, before she raised her head to look at Susan, eyes narrowed. 

“Hang on,” she said, her brow furrowing. “How did you explain your getting pregnant to the girls?”

“I gave them an in-depth explanation of the in-vitro fertilization process,” Susan said with a shrug. 

“Really?”

“No, I told them it was magic. Very _expensive_ magic.”

Elizabeth rested her head back against the pillow. She closed her eyes and draped an arm over them, blocking out all light as she thought. 

For a moment, she just breathed deeply as her mind spun. 

“I think you need to tell the tall, bald one,” Susan suggested. 

“Not yet,” Elizabeth replied with a deep breath. “Just… Just give me a few days. To figure out what I’m going to say.”

“Okay. Though, a good starting place might be ‘I’m pregnant.’”

Elizabeth sighed and pulled her arm away from her face. 

Though Elizabeth continued to assure Susan that she was going to inform Mark she was pregnant as soon as she was ready, when days stretched into weeks, not telling Mark that he was going to be a dad again started to prove very difficult.

The only brightside was that Kerry returned to her regularly scheduled two ER shifts per week at the beginning of December, meaning that Susan went several days without being scheduled at the same time as Mark. 

“Hey, Dr. Lewis?” Jing-Mei Chen asked as Susan wiped her name off from the board. “Oncology just called. They said they finally got ahold of Northwestern about the infusion regimen for Mrs. Donnelly from the MVA earlier. They said they’re compounding it right now, so we can take her upstairs.”

“Took ‘em long enough,” Susan remarked. “Do you want to take her or should I?”

“Could you take her? I’ve got to pee. _Again.”_

Susan nodded knowingly and took the chart from the pregnant resident. 

She found Mrs. Donnelly in Curtain One, and, with the help of Malik, got her onto a gurney so they could take her upstairs. The woman thanked them profusely as they led her to the elevator, explaining that, if it weren’t for the cast applied to her leg, she’d have walked to Evanston if it meant she got her treatment today. 

An Oncology resident met them on the floor to take the gurney with Mrs. Donnelly. But before Susan could even turn around and press the elevator button to go back downstairs, she spotted something that froze her heart. 

Mark was sitting in one of the armchairs on the other side of the department. A nurse was removing an IV from his arm.

Susan watched as he stood up from the chair, holding a cotton ball to the spot where the IV had been inserted in vein in the crook of his elbow. An oncologist in scrubs and a white coat (not unlike Mark’s) came over to speak with him briefly as he slipped his white coat back on. 

Her presence went unnoticed by him through his checking out with the nurse at the desk and walking back for the elevators. But the moment he looked up from the floor and locked eyes with her, all the blood drained from his chemo-paled face.

For a moment, they just stared at each other, before two nurses walked between them and Mark crossed around to pull Susan aside. 

And though they both knew that Susan knew the answer, there was only one thing Susan’s brain would let her say. 

“Tell me you’re here for a patient.”

Mark said nothing. But when the silence pressed on them without further response from Susan, he sighed. 

“I could say that, but it wouldn’t make it true.”

“Is this…” Susan felt her breathing begin to quicken as she glanced around. “Is this where you’ve… Is this why you haven’t been downstairs?”

Mark inhaled deeply. 

“I asked Kerry to cover for me for a couple weeks,” Mark explained quietly. “Just so I could get started-”

“You told Kerry before you told _me?”_ Susan found herself hissing. “Have you at least told Elizabeth?”

“I...I-”

“Have you told Elizabeth, Mark?” Susan repeated firmly, her fear channeling into anger.

“Not yet,” Mark replied. “I wanted to wait until I got through the first scan. Which is later today. So, I’ll know more of what I’m supposed to say.”

“What is it?” Susan asked quickly. “Blood? Lung? Prostate?”

“Brain.”

Susan stared. 

“You have a…” Susan swallowed hard. “You have a _brain tumor?”_

“Pushing on my Broca’s area,” Mark informed her. “I’m trying the chemo because the neurosurgeon…”

His words trailed off at the glistening of the tears in Susan’s eyes. 

“It’ll be okay,” he assured her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll let you know how things go tonight after the scan. And I… And I promise that I’m going to tell Elizabeth. Tonight.”

Susan nodded, but she wasn’t reassured at all. And when she arrived home and found no voicemails waiting for her and her wife standing alone in the kitchen, that fear-turned-anger washed over her again. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Kerry looked up from drying the dishes in the strainer. 

“What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Susan asked through gritted teeth. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’d been covering for Mark?”

Kerry put the dish towel on the counter and turned towards Susan. As she leaned back against the counter, she heaved a sigh. 

“He asked me not to tell you or Elizabeth.”

“And you _listened_ to him? You kept _this_ a secret?” Susan spat. “Kerry, he’s my best friend. He’s like a brother to me, and you didn’t bother to tell me he could be _dying?”_

“Susan, I gave him my word,” Kerry said in a less firm tone than she intended. “He didn’t want to worry either of you before he knew more.”

“You can’t be bothered to tell me that my best friend could be dying, just because he made you promise not to? That’s worth breaking your word over, Kerry. That’s worth him getting mad at you,” Susan said in a low, furious voice. “If your mother had made me promise not to tell you she was dying before she did, you can bet your ass I would have told you that. But you couldn’t do the same for me.”

Susan regretted the words as soon as she’d said them, but it didn’t stop the fear and sadness from speaking them aloud. 

But instead of leaving or even getting angry herself, Kerry just stood there looking at her sadly. And the moment she stepped forward and pulled Susan into her arms, Susan burst into tears. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she wept into Kerry’s shoulder. 

Kerry said nothing and instead just gently shushed her the way she would the girls, the tenderness in her hug choosing to speak for her. 

They stood there for a long moment, Susan sobbing as Kerry held her tight to her, just the way Susan had for her in the hours (and days and months) following Mildred’s death.

“Did he…” Susan said in between sobs as she pulled out of the hug. “D-D-Did he tell you anything else?”

“Only that he was exploring some experimental options,” Kerry said softly, wiping tears from Susan’s cheek. “Including a neurosurgeon in New York that might be able to remove it.”

Susan nodded as she forced herself to take deep, calming breaths. 

“Did he tell…” Susan inhaled deeply. “Did he tell you his odds?”

Susan knew the answer in Kerry’s grimace. 

“Not good.”

Susan sniffed a few times. Kerry handed her a paper towel to blow her nose (as they still hadn’t the forethought to put a box of tissues any closer than the living room). 

“So, what do we do now?”

Kerry shrugged and let out another sigh. 

“I think all we can do is wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wouldn't be my writing if we didn't have the funny, happy stuff and the sad stuff in the same chapter. And the next chapter's gonna be full of the sad stuff. 
> 
> We're in Season 7. I'm sorry for skipping ahead so far in one chapter, but as I've said before, I've got the pacing for this very carefully planned out. Since we're going further into the show, I'm trying to keep myself on track to give a little bit more time to Season 9 since I haven't covered that in other fics. 
> 
> Not much to say about this other than the immortal words of Leslie Knope: "I sad."
> 
> U probably sad too. But it's gonna get better! And then it's going to get much, much worse. I'd apologize, but really, most of the bad stuff is not going to be of my creation. I just get to retell it in my own happily gutwrenching way :)
> 
> Until next time!


	35. Into the Woods, or The Yes/No Game Pt. 2

Pregnancy was a hard thing to celebrate when it wasn’t clear if the baby’s father was going to live long enough to see the baby born. The same thing went for a wedding, given how little use there was to make plans if the groom may die before he can make an appearance. 

After Mark made his cancer diagnosis public, Susan was reminded of several years before when Adam’s health had been in jeopardy and how everything seemed to grind to a halt. Everything in their lives was different seemingly overnight, and yet, the rest of the world continued on around them as normal.

She watched as dates on the calendar passed by: The day she and Elizabeth had planned to go dress shopping;the day of the wedding/baby shower; the date by which they needed to book their hotel room for the honeymoon (should the baby allow them to go). 

And as much as watching these dates pass saddened Susan, they angered her more.

It was like watching another lifetime pass by. As if in another timeline, this wasn’t happening. As if in another world, the only things they’d have to worry about was who shouldn’t sit next to whom at the reception and how many times they’d have to threaten Mark before he finally took his tuxedo to be tailored. Illness and the prospect of death were just things to be dealt with at work and were to be left there at the end of each day.

What might have been the worst part of it all was watching Suzie have to process the idea that Uncle Mark might die. 

She’d been present the night Mildred died, but that was different. When Mildred died, Suzie was still a toddler. The most she understood of the events that night was that Grandma went away and didn’t come back. But Uncle Mark was different.

For one, Uncle Mark was Mommy and Momma’s age, not old like Grandma was. And where Mildred had died unexpectedly, Uncle Mark was sick and therefore nobody knew if or when he was going to die. So, not only did she have to consider the reality of Uncle Mark dying, she had to watch her moms worry over it too. 

There was, however, another person in the Weaver-Lewis-Levin household who had had to deal with someone she loved being sick and coming to understand that they might not get better. And she was only slightly older than Suzie was when she’d had to go through it. 

To see a ten-year-old and five-year-old playing with Barbies or drawing pictures of dogs while discussing the reality of illness and death was a jarring juxtaposition to say the least, and one that knocked Susan out every time she saw it. 

Susan reserved her judgement of what was and was not fair for the injustices of the world, but she couldn’t help but think that this was just not fair. And as unfair as it felt for Elizabeth and Mark and for herself, it felt far, far more unfair for Rachel and Annie and Suzie. 

Things felt like they were beginning to look up at the end of December. 

The neurosurgeon in New York performed an experimental surgery on the tumor, carving it out with what he referred to as a ‘laser-knife.’ And despite Elizabeth’s worrying report that Mark had seized on the table, the tumor had still been resected with clean margins. 

But they weren’t done yet. Recovery was going to be a long and arduous process.

Elizabeth returned to work in mid-January, sporting dark circles under both eyes, a prominent baby bump, and a new cell phone.

It was already growing more normal to expect that someone could be called _or_ call you from anywhere, but Elizabeth explained she’d gotten herself and Mark phones because of a feature called ‘text messaging’ where they could send each other short 160-character-or-less messages without having to call each other. She hoped that this would help them keep in touch better should any emergencies arise while Mark was at home alone (unfortunately like the frustrated message she received while explaining this regarding Mark being unable to remember something minute). 

But, regardless, he and Elizabeth both maintained that he would be ready to return to partial shifts in the ER starting in February. Susan and Kerry took them both at their word and, to celebrate this milestone in recovery, invited them to Annie’s fifth grade musical on February 1st. 

“Now, don’t get me wrong,” Susan said as she read through the printer paper program listing the songs to be performed and the names of the hundred-something fifth graders about to perform them, “I love Stephen Sondheim as much as the next person, but doesn’t his repertoire seem a bit… _advanced_ for fifth graders?”

“I would say Sondheim’s repertoire is advanced for most _college students,”_ Adam said in agreement from his seat on the bleacher a few feet away. “But rumor has it that the new music teacher was vying for the position of theatre director at the high school next door. Perhaps this is his way of still getting to show his directing prowess.”

Susan gave a shrug of acknowledgement but the line up for _Children Will Listen: A Celebration of Stephen Sondheim featuring the Class of 2008_ seemed much more fitting for a line up at the Tony Awards than it did in the gymnasium of Annie’s elementary school. 

“I don’t know. I think it’ll be fun,” Mark remarked as he looked through the listing. “My dad liked Sondheim just as much as Roger’s and Hammerstein. And I played a Jet in my high school’s production of _West Side Story.”_

 _“Really?”_ Susan and Elizabeth said in unison. 

Mark nodded, a Cubs hat covering his new scar. 

“You never told me that,” Elizabeth remarked, clearly impressed. 

“Well, the only reason I did it was to try and impress Rebecca Myers who was playing Maria, so…”

“Did it work?” Susan asked, also impressed.

“No,” Mark admitted. “But I learned how to fake getting punched in the fight scene at the beginning.”

Susan smiled at the thought of a tall, gangly teenage Mark Greene, hair slicked back with gel, performing Jerome Robbins’ classic and complex fight choreography. 

“Why doesn’t Kindergarten get to do a musical?” Suzie asked as the fifth graders began to file into the risers down below them. 

“You’ll get to do the musical when you’re in fifth grade.”

“But I want to do one now,” Suzie whined. “Kara at ballet got to be in one! It was called… the miserables.”

 _“Les Misérables?”_ Kerry asked, leaning forward to see Suzie, who was seated on the other side of Susan. 

“Yeah, that one!”

“We can reenact _Les Miz_ in the car if you’d like,” Susan offered. “Momma has the soundtrack on CD. But, I’ll warn you, it translates to ‘the miserables’ for a reason.”

Suzie apparently didn’t care that _Les Miz_ was depressing though, and instead just kicked her legs back and forth happily against the wood of the bleachers. 

“Has Annie expressed being nervous at all?” Mark asked as he spotted the redhead filing in. 

Annie spotted them a second later and lit up. She waved up at them and all of them - Elizabeth, Mark, Suzie, Susan, Kerry, Adam, and Michael - waved back. All except for Charlie, who was seated on Kerry’s lap and wanted nothing more than to rip the program in Kerry’s hand into little pieces.

“Not really. I think she’d be nervous if she were singing alone, but she doesn’t mind it in a group,” Kerry replied, pulling her program out of Charlie’s reach. “She’s very excited for next week, though, because the fifth graders are going to the high school to watch the band and orchestra perform and learn about all the different instruments.”

“Has he said which one he’s interested in?” 

“Band,” Kerry answered. “Michael and I were in band together in high school. And Susan was in band, too, right?”

“Yep. I played the trumpet,” Susan replied, nodding. “I _lived_ for marching band season. I could’ve cared less about concert band, but I had to be in concert band to be in marching band. And jazz band, too. Which I was first chair in because William Rutgers, who sat first-chair in concert band, said he was ‘too good’ for jazz band. Which was code for ‘he couldn’t swing to save his life.’”

All the adults chuckled, but Suzie did not. She was too busy looking between the grown-ups, trying to figure out if anyone else had heard what she had just heard.

She was pretty certain that Uncle Mark had just referred to Annie as a ‘he,’ but no one else around seemed to have noticed. 

It was kinda loud, she thought. Maybe he said ‘she’ but she hadn’t heard him right because it was too loud. 

As Suzie contemplated this, a few seats down, Charlie was getting frustrated. 

“Charlie, stop,” Kerry said as Charlie once again reached for her program. 

“You want me to take him?” Mark asked.

Kerry pulled her keys out of her purse and tried to give them to the soon-to-be one-year-old on her lap. But Charlie just let out an angry grunt and tried to swat the keys away in favor of the paper. 

“Yes, please,” Kerry said with a grunt of her own. 

Susan helped pass the toddler down to Mark, who gladly gave her his program to tear apart. 

But now, having heard it a second time, Suzie was convinced something was wrong.

“Uncle Mark?” 

“Yeah, Suzie?”

“You know Charlie’s a girl, right?” 

Mark looked taken aback. 

“Of course, I do,” he said slowly. “Why would you think I didn’t?”

“Because you just asked if you could take ‘him,’” Suzie replied, her little brow furrowed. “And I wanted to make sure because a lot of people think Charlie’s a boy because of her name. But I thought you knew that.”

“I… I do know that.”

“And you know Annie’s a girl, too, right? Because earlier you called her a ‘he.’”

“Yes, Uncle Mark knows that Annie and Charlie are girls,” Susan said firmly. “I don’t think you heard him right.”

“I didn’t think so,” Suzie insisted, “but then he did it again!”

“None of the rest of us heard that,” Susan replied, shaking her head. “I don’t think you heard him right.”

“But, I-”

_“Suzie.”_

It was clear by Susan’s tone that this was the end of the conversation. 

Suzie crossed her arms in frustration, but said nothing else. She just silently fumed as Susan gave Mark an apologetic look. 

Down below on the gym floor, the last of the fifth-graders had filed into their places. Annie was standing on the floor of the far (stage) left side. She stuck out from the others in her row, but not because of her crutches as one would expect. 

Sure, the bright orange stood out noticeably against the black and white color theme of the performers (as they were meant to be), but more so because her use of them had apparently concerned the music teacher enough that he didn’t want to put her on a higher riser. And, given that Annie had already started her first growth spurt, she stood a head taller than all the other children nearby.

The din of the crowd died down as a young White man in a crisp black suit approached the microphone.

“Thank you all for coming out tonight,” he said, his voice amplified across the gym. “My name is Pete Nicholson and I am honored to welcome you all here tonight to celebrate the hard work of our fifth-graders.”

Mr. Nicholson paused to allow the crowd to clap. 

“We are delighted to present to you our fifth-grade musical. This year, we will be celebrating esteemed composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim with _Children Will Listen._ We will be performing five songs from Sondheim’s oeuvre for you this evening, but I will say in advance that we will _not_ be performing anything from _Sweeny Todd._ If you’d like to hear young people sing _that,_ I recommend you attend the high school’s production of it next weekend. Tickets will be $7 and can be ordered in advance or purchased at the door. And, no, they will not be serving refreshments.”

The nervous smile on Mr. Nicholson’s face faltered somewhat as his joke appeared too high brow for most of the parents gathered to watch the performance. 

“Anyways,” he said quickly, “we will be performing five pieces tonight, beginning with ‘Comedy Tonight’ from _A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.’”_

There was a spattering of applause as Mr. Nicholson stepped away from the microphone to step towards the sound system. He pushed a button on the CD player and then rushed to take his place in front of the gathered chorus. 

For a choir of ten-year-olds, they didn’t do half bad a job, given that the songs they were performing were meant to be performed by veteran Broadway actors with specialized enunciation training to sing “Your Fault/ Last Midnight” from _Into the Woods_ at 170 beats per minute.

Following “Comedy Tonight” was “Send In The Clowns” from _A Little Night Music_ and “I Feel Pretty” from _West Side Story,_ which the fifth-grade girls seemed to enjoy but the boys seemed to hate. 

Mr. Nicholson made a comment to the audience before “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” that the name of the musical was not listed in the program because it was, in fact, a slur against Romani people and he did not wish to print or say it. But before any parents in the crowd could get upset about him ‘dragging politics into a show by school kids,’ the choir gave a very moving performance of “No One Is Alone” from _Into the Woods_ that brought more than one parent to tears. 

After giving the class of 2008 a standing ovation, the audience filed out into the lobby. 

Kerry, Suzie, and Elizabeth (and Charlie) excused themselves to the bathroom while Michael and Adam went to fetch Annie from backstage. Susan and Mark continued on to a place off to the side of the lobby, away from the rest of the crowd.

“That was fun. This is the kind of stuff I don’t get with Rachel living so far away,” Mark said. 

“Hopefully, that’s not the case with the new baby,” Susan said with a small smile. “But I don’t think Elizabeth’s going anywhere, so you’ll get the chance to see that stuff.”

They shared a nervous giggle at the statement, but for the first time in months, it wasn’t followed by the sucking in of air or the promise of tears.

“So, are you ready to come back to work on Monday?” she asked, her nervous giggle turning into nervous hope. 

Mark opened his mouth to reply, but the pause that followed the action was a bit longer than normal. But before Susan could ask if he was okay, he quickly shook his head as if to snap himself out of it.

“You have no idea. Elizabeth’s been…Elizabeth’s been a trooper. But he’s gotta be tired of me being home all the time. And _I’m_ tired of me being home all the time. I’m ready to get back to work.”

“Wait… Who has been a trooper?” Susan asked, frowning.

“Elizabeth,” Mark repeated as if it wasn’t even a question. “I said he’s been a trooper.”

Susan stared at him for a long moment. 

“Susan, what’s wrong?”

“I think I owe Suzie an apology.”

“For what?”

“She said earlier that you referred to Charlie and Annie using masculine pronouns and I told her she was wrong, but you just did it now with Elizabeth.”

For a split second, Susan was sure that he was going to deny it. But he didn’t, and in that moment, they both knew he knew the truth of what had happened earlier.

“Maybe you should wait another week or two,” Susan said slowly, “before you come back to work.”

“Susan, I’m fine,” Mark said seriously. “It’s just a couple pronouns. It’s not hurting anyone.”

“Pronouns mean a lot to people,” Susan replied earnestly. “And I’m not just saying that because if you were to call a big surly male patient ‘she,’ he’d deck you.”

“Susan, this isn’t time for jokes,” Mark said, rolling his eyes in annoyance. 

“And I’m not joking.”

Susan’s tone turned grave faster than one could dig six feet. And for the man who had spent the last several months with one foot hovering over that six foot hole, the tone scared him almost more than death did. (Key word: almost)

“Susan, you realize that they removed part of my brain, right? They opened up my skull and removed a tumor from inside my head,” Mark said, his own tone growing angrier as he grew more fearful. “It’s going to take a while to recover fully from that-.”

“Exactly, Mark!” Susan replied urgently. “And all I want is for you to recover. Which is why it’s all the more that you take care of yourself.”

“I _am_ taking care of myself,” Mark said, matching Susan’s urgency. “And part of my taking care of myself means going back to work.”

“Fine,” Susan said, throwing her hands up in concession. “But if you’re coming back to work on Monday, then I’m going to be with you the entire time. And if I don’t think you’re ready to do something, I’m going to keep you from doing it.”

“You’re my fellow Attending, Susan. You’re not my Chief of Emergency Services.”

“No, I’m your best friend,” Susan corrected. “I care more about you than your Chief of Emergency Services.”

“What’s going on?” 

Both Susan and Mark looked up at once to see Elizabeth had rejoined them. 

Mark looked from Elizabeth to Susan, waiting for her to explain. Susan closed her eyes for a moment and then pulled herself up to full height, crossing her arms firmly.

“I don’t know if Mark is ready to go back to work,” she stated clearly although speaking the words aloud made sorrow flood into her chest. “And if he insists on doing so, there have to be guidelines.”

“But… But why?”

Elizabeth looked back and forth between the pair of them, looking for some kind of explanation.

Mark just inhaled deeply and then motioned for Susan to go on. 

“Earlier, Suzie thought he was using the wrong pronouns,” Susan informed Elizabeth. “And I thought she was wrong, but he just did it again when referring to you.”

“Well, that’s…” Elizabeth swallowed as she tried to figure out her words. “Well, that’s just… That’s just part of the recovery. There’s some residual aphasia-”

“And I understand that,” Susan said, cutting her off. “Which is why I think he should take his time.”

Mark shook his head and turned for the front door. 

Elizabeth paused, looking after him for a moment as she gathered her thoughts. Then, she clenched her fists in rage and turned on Susan.

“Look what you did,” she said through gritted teeth. “You had to go ruin a good time over nothing. I hope you’re happy.”

 _“Happy?_ Why the hell would you think this makes me _happy,_ Elizabeth?” Susan said, her own fearful anger rising.

Elizabeth must not have been able to come up with a reasonable retort because, after a moment, she just clenched her jaw, spun on her heel, and followed the same path Mark had out the front door. 

But, this time, Susan followed after her.

The early February freeze seeped into Susan’s exposed skin as she stepped out the door into the night. Her coat was in her arms, but she was too busy avoiding cars in the lot as she chased Elizabeth back towards her car.

“Elizabeth, turn around.”

“No.”

“Elizabeth… _Dammit.”_

Susan sped up and managed to grab Elizabeth by the hand. Elizabeth tried to jerk away, but Susan’s grip was too tight. 

“Elizabeth, look at me,” Susan ordered. 

When Elizabeth looked everywhere but, Susan squeezed her hand harder. 

“Elizabeth, look me in the eye.”

Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment before opening them and looking at Susan straight on.

“Yes or no,” Susan said in a low, urgent voice, “do you have his best interest at heart?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth answered in what she’d intended to be a firm statement but came out as barely more than a whisper.

“Yes or no: Have I ever given you reason to believe I don’t?”

Elizabeth hesitated on her answer, partly because she didn’t want to admit the truth and partly because the lump of emotion in her throat made it hard to respond.

“No.”

“Yes or no…” Susan inhaled deeply through her nose and then exhaled. “Do you think I would say this for any other reason than that I truly didn’t think he was okay?”

“I-I-I-”

“Elizabeth, it’s a yes or no question,” Susan said, squeezing Elizabeth’s hand tight. “Do you think I would ever suggest this for any other reason than really not believing he’s okay yet?”

Elizabeth’s mouth worked wordlessly for a moment before she let out a breath that sounded like sob.

“No.”

Elizabeth bit her lip against the oncoming sobs, but tears still overflowed her eyes and began to roll down her cheeks. 

“I just want him to be okay again.”

Elizabeth’s words were nearly lost to the late winter wind and the rumble of cars as they pulled out of the lot. 

“That’s all I want, too.”

She hoped that the firm grip on Elizabeth’s hand could express her sincerity better than any words could. 

And, sure enough, after a long moment, Elizabeth nodded.

“I’ll talk to him.”

The reluctant acceptance in Elizabeth’s voice almost made Susan choke up. But instead, she just squeezed her hand once more and released it. 

Susan didn’t linger to watch Elizabeth return to the car, and instead turned back for the school, throwing her coat over her shoulders mid-shiver. 

She found Kerry, Michael, Adam, and the girls looking for her when she walked back inside. She focused on their looks of relief and ignored the looks of others who had seen Mark and Elizabeth storm out.

“Where did you go?” Suzie asked, worry evident in her young voice. “We followed Aunt Lizzie out of the bathroom, but then we couldn’t find you or her or Uncle Mark.”

Susan nodded, but at the look on her face, Kerry’s brow furrowed. 

“Are you alright?” she inquired quietly, hosting Charlie up on her hip. “Where’s Mark and Elizabeth?”

“They had to leave.”

Kerry couldn’t ask about any further details before Susan immediately brightened and turned to Annie to gush over the performance. 

The drastic change in demeanor seemed to convince everyone else that everything was fine, but the speed at which the change occurred made Kerry skeptic. She waited until they bade goodbye to Michael, Adam, and Annie (it was a Thursday after all) and went home to put Suzie and Charlie to bed. 

She found Susan already changed and in bed when she finished tucking Suzie in. She was staring at their comforter and didn’t look up at her entrance nor while she changed into her pajamas. 

“What _really_ happened after the concert?” Kerry asked as she sat down on her side of the bed. “You looked… You looked upset.”

Susan rubbed a hand over her face and then looked at Kerry.

“I told Mark that I thought he needed to wait a few more weeks,” Susan informed her. “And if he didn’t, he needed to take it slow when he went back on Monday.”

“I would _hope_ he takes it slow after he just had _brain surgery.”_

Susan sat back against the headboard.

“I might have to enforce it.” She heaved a sigh. “And when I told him that, he got mad.”

Kerry nodded. 

“If you need to, you can throw me under the bus,” Kerry offered. “Say it’s my fault and you don’t want to, but I’m making you do it. Then, he can get mad at me instead of you. And, honestly, I don’t think anyone would question me doing that. I don’t even think _I_ would question me doing that.”

Susan smiled slightly. 

“Thanks. But I think I got Elizabeth to convince him.”

Kerry nodded again and then climbed under the comforter. 

She stretched out her legs, sucking in air at the expectation of pain shooting through her hip. And, sure enough, the joint _clicked_ back into place and the spot where the cartilage had worn down to bone-on-bone rubbed together. She _really_ needed to make an appointment with her rheumatologist for another cortisone shot. 

“You know, I keep thinking that we invited them tonight to celebrate his recovery, and that by realizing he’s not quite okay yet afterwards, really, we celebrated too soon,” Susan thought aloud as Kerry cuddled into her side. “But if we hadn’t, we’d have learned on Monday. And if it waited until then, I hate to think of how we’d find out. And what the cost would be.”

Kerry rested her head on Susan’s shoulder.

“You did the right thing. Even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

Susan nodded, though Kerry telling her she had done the right thing kept her awake long after Kerry herself had muttered goodnight, turned off the lamp, and turned over onto her right side to go to sleep. 

It wasn’t Kerry’s words that continued to cycle through her head as she struggled to fall asleep. They had just happened to remind her of one of the songs from earlier in the evening. 

_Witches can be right, giants can be good._ You _decide what's right,_ you _decide what's good._

If she had decided she was right, how could she be sure she was? 

_Someone is on your side, someone else is not… While we're seeing our side, maybe we forgot._

She was on Mark’s side. He might not believe it at the moment, but hopefully Elizabeth would help him see reason. She _had_ to. 

She’d already worried herself sick over the possibility of losing her best friend once this year in the most permanent of senses. She wasn’t going to lose him over this. If Elizabeth couldn’t convince him, she was going to, come hell or highwater. 

Susan’s resolve only strengthened over the weekend. And, even as strong as it was, when she saw Mark walk behind the desk in her direction, dressed in his green scrubs and a surgical cap on over his scar, her heart still thudded in her chest as she worried what he’d say. 

He stopped in front of her and heaved a sigh. He crossed his arms, which immediately made Susan fear the worst.

“So,” he began, glancing around, “who are we seeing first?”

For a moment, Susan feared the question was another pronoun mix-up, but it was clear from the look in his eyes when he looked back at her that it wasn’t. 

Elizabeth, it seemed, had gotten through to him. She had no need for further argument or blaming her wife (no matter how willing her wife was to be blamed). 

That only furthered the point of the song that had kept her up and she hadn’t been able to shake from her thoughts since it got there.

_No one is alone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's funny how just changing the chapter title can so drastically change what I have planned for it. Because I had already written the first big narrative chunk when I realized the next chapter was titled (spoilers) "Out of the Woods," which immediately made my showtune-loving brain say, "Well, why isn't this chapter called 'Into the Woods'?" Because, come on. "Into the Woods" and "Out of the Woods"... It just works. (So long as you're home before dark.)
> 
> Of course, once I made that switch, a different approach to the events of this chapter unfolded. This turned out to be very helpful as not only did it allow me to research a set of Sondheim tunes a fifth-grade class could feasibly sing and then enjoy running the list by my elementary-music-teacher-fiancé for accuracy, but it gave me a better set up for things to unfold. I had a bit of writer's block for this one, as I've said many times that some things play out the same way in this AU that they do in the other one, but I still want to give them their own twist. I think this worked. 
> 
> I should say that this is the closest I ever get to a "songfic." I came into fanfiction after that trend had peaked and only ever found a couple of them that I really liked. I prefer my "songfics" to be how my reality plays out - I get a song stuck in my head for three days straight and sometimes it makes me consider things from a different point of view. But more often I just hear "Into the woods... Into the woods... Into the woods..." over and over again on repeat without actually finishing the lyric until I pull it up on Spotify and listen to it.
> 
> I'm excited for what's in store for the next several chapters. We've got some fun stuff before we get into the season eight heaviness. 
> 
> Hope you all are well! Until next time.


	36. Out of the Woods

“Annie, will you please close your mouth. You look like a tourist in Times Square.”

Annie tore her eyes away from gawking at the high ceilings of the cathedral to look at Kerry.

“But it’s so…” She gestured to the stained glass depicting various saints and the crucifix hanging on the wall of the church where the Greene-Corday wedding was about to take place. _“...Different.”_

“And I understand that, but you’re acting like Grandma never took you to church with her.”

“She _didn’t.”_

“She… She didn’t?” Kerry asked, confused.

“No,” Annie replied sincerely. “I mean… Sometimes, she took me _to_ church with her, but she never took me to church _with her.”_

Kerry frowned. 

“Why did I think she had?”

Annie shrugged and turned her attention back to looking around. But as she looked around, she noted the lack of an ark on what she considered the bimah but others considered the pulpit. 

“Where do they keep the… Bible?” Annie asked (pausing to stop herself from saying ‘Torah’).

“It’s right there,” Kerry replied, pointing at a book in the pew in front of her. 

Annie followed her finger and then looked back up at Kerry, seemingly unsure of if her mother was kidding or not. 

“That’s it?” 

Kerry nodded, which only served to make Annie even more put off. Wasn’t that supposed to be their holy book? 

But before she could as anything else, Susan returned to their pew from where she’d been chatting with the ushers at the door. 

“Any word?” Kerry asked, as Susan picked up her purse from the floor near Kerry’s feet. 

“Not yet. The ushers say that they haven’t seen him come in yet, and I checked downstairs in the room set aside for him to change in, but he’s not there either.”

“You weren’t supposed to bring him here, were you?” Kerry asked hesitantly. 

“Not that I know of,” Susan replied with a huff. “Last we discussed it, we agreed that he would drive his car here because Elizabeth would be coming with her parents from the hotel. That way they had transportation to the reception and didn’t have to worry about coming back to get a car later.”

Susan shuffled through her purse until she finally found her phone. When she pulled it out, she immediately checked to see if there were any missed calls or messages from the groom, but the screen went straight to the main menu with no unread notifications. 

“Did Elizabeth try to call him?”

“She didn’t bring her phone. She doesn’t have any pockets and didn’t want to bring a purse. Hopefully, I can get ahold of him.”

Kerry nodded as Susan set her purse back down on the pew and turned back up the aisle, her phone in hand. And as she clicked through her contacts in search of Mark’s number, she heard Annie ask Kerry if she was expected to know any other languages during the service. 

A few more wedding guests had arrived when she stepped out into the lobby. She quickly stepped to the side to avoid the spray as they shook out their umbrellas from the downpour outside. 

The call rang out for thirty seconds before Susan got his voicemail.

“I’m sorry... [Mark Greene]... is not available,” a feminine voice informed her. At the tone, please record your voice message. When you are finished recording, you may hang up or press # for more options.”

_Beep._

“Mark, I don’t know where you are or what’s going on, but you’re really freaking us out,” Susan hissed into the phone. “Please call me back when you get this and tell me what on earth is going on because you’re supposed to be getting married in twenty minutes and worrying about you means I’ve left your fiancée downstairs with her _parents._ Please, for the love of _God,_ call me back.”

Susan hung up the call and leaned back against the cold stone of the church wall. For a moment, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply before straightening up and turning for the large front doors. 

She did not find the bald man she was looking for in the lobby, but, instead, a _different_ bald man who gave her a smug smile upon seeing the look of annoyance on her face. 

“What?” Romano asked, smirking as he shook out his umbrella. “Surprised to see me?”

“No, I can’t say I am,” Susan said with an annoyed smile. “I tried to forcibly remove you from the guest list several times, but Elizabeth likes you for some reason, so she refused.”

Romano’s smile grew even more smug. But when he spoke next, his usual tone had been replaced with one more sincere.

“How’s she look?” 

“Beautiful.”

“And how does _he_ look?” Romano asked as his normal tone crept back into his voice. “Green in both name and face?”

“He’s not here yet,” Susan replied before she could stop herself.

“Well, if he’s smart, he’s halfway to Mexico by now.”

Susan clenched her fists, which, unfortunately, Romano took satisfaction in. 

“You know how a couple weeks ago, you and some of your friends told Kerry that you supported that one girl who parked her car in front of her train and killed a bunch of people saying that Kim Legaspi coming out to her in treatment counted as sexual harassment? And Kerry told you to get out of her office before she gave Elizabeth a promotion as a wedding gift?” Susan asked rhetorically. “Because we actually haven’t gotten them anything off the registry yet, so, keep this up and I might just tell her to make that happen.”

“Relax It’s a joke.” His eyebrows rose. “You don’t have to stress out so much. It’s not like you’re the one getting married.”

“Well, seeing as I’m both Elizabeth’s Maid of Honor _and_ Mark’s Best Man, I think I have every right to be stressing this much.”

“You’re the Maid of Honor and the Best Man? They really don’t have any other friends, do they?” Romano thought aloud. “Couldn’t your girlfriend help out at all? Or do other people find her just as grating as I do?”

“I’m also the bouncer,” Susan said with a dangerous smile. “So, I recommend you take your seat before I bounce you.”

Romano just chuckled to himself as he took the arm of his date, who referred to him as ‘Rocket’ (and nearly made Susan gag), and continued on into the sanctuary.

A few other guests made their way in through the front doors, and each time Susan perked up, only to get worried all over again. 

She kept checking the time on her phone screen. 

5:14 pm… 5:17 pm… 5:23 pm...

When she checked again at 5:26 pm and there was still no sign of the groom, Susan readied herself to go tell Elizabeth that they would have to delay things. But as soon as she turned for the hallway to the waiting room where the bride was getting ready, the doors opened again and a thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly drenched Mark Greene stumbled inside.

“Where the _hell_ have you been?” Susan spat as she nevertheless started helping him out of his coat. “We were beginning to think that you weren’t coming.”

“I stopped at County to get something and then this busload of women from the courthouse showed up and they needed help getting everyone inside,” Mark explained, panting.

“You were helping people. Because of course you were,” Susan said, shaking her head. “God, you’re such a good man, Mark. I hope Elizabeth keeps that in mind when she decides whether or not to kill you later.”

Before Mark had a chance to respond (or deny the potential of Elizabeth murdering him), Susan pointed down the opposite hallway towards the stairwell.

“Now, go put that tux on before I give Elizabeth a gun.”

Elizabeth proved to be so relieved at the appearance of her husband-to-be that she did not demonstrate any interest in killing him. (The _thought_ , however, did cross her mind.)

After the ceremony, the wedding guests huddled together under umbrellas and coats to cross the street towards the event center where the reception would be held. 

Having spent most of the evening the night before and the morning of the wedding helping Elizabeth decorate it, Susan nearly forgot how nice it looked put together until the guests walked in, jaws dropped in amazement.

The lights were dimmed, but string lights wrapped in white tulle added faint illumination along the walls and around flickering candles in glass hurricanes at each table. Gold doilies wrapped around delicate white flowers surrounded the hurricanes, occasionally making the candlelight flicker in different patterns.

She, Kerry, and Annie made their way towards one of the tables at the front, where they would be joined by Carter and his date, as well as Lucy Knight and her “date” for the evening, Carmen Vargas-Vega.

As the others took their seats, Susan sidled up to Carmen and dropped her voice.

“Was this your idea or hers?”

Carmen feigned offense.

“It was her idea. She was at The Trauma Center™ training on leading group sessions and brought up that she didn’t have a date to the wedding when we were chatting afterwards. And I offered to go with her as a friend. And I _am_ her friend, so…”

“And this has nothing to do with the fact that you got stabbed twice in the spleen and twice in the kidney for her?”

Carmen gave a slight shrug. 

“I _may_ have told her all would be forgiven...” she replied slowly. “I told her the same thing when she visited me in the hospital. Don’t give me that look.”

Susan rolled her eyes, but let out a chuckle nonetheless, before turning to take her seat.

Soon, the bride and groom arrived to raucous applause. Dinner came out not too much longer after that. 

But as plates were passed around and the guests began to dig in, Susan felt her stomach begin to turn somewhat. Though she knew the feeling was nerves and not nausea, she still requested the waiter hang onto her dish until after the toast. Which, of course, came all too soon for her taste.

When the microphone was plugged into the sound system, Susan took it as her cue to make her way up to the table where the bride and groom sat alongside her parents. A hush fell over the crowd as she stood up. 

“Welcome, everyone. Thank you all for coming out tonight to celebrate the wedding of Mark Greene and Elizabeth Corday.”

She paused for a round of applause for the bride and groom.

“My name is Susan Lewis and I am a good friend of the bride and the groom, so you can all relax. There’s only one speech to get through, and I promise I’ll keep it short.”

There was a titter from the gathered crowd. Susan took a deep breath.

“I first met Mark Greene almost ten years ago when I was a third-year medical student. And in the days prior to starting my first ER rotation, I was really nervous. All of my classmates who had done it already told me that it was going to be very intense and stressful. Which is weird, now that I think about it, because my wife didn’t even work there yet.”

Susan glanced at Kerry, who just rolled her eyes at the quip, as those who knew her and had worked with her before chuckled in agreement.

“But, I remember sitting there in the lounge when this tall doctor with this _beautiful_ head of hair came up to me…” Susan paused again for laughter. “And he introduced himself as Mark Greene and told me that he was the intern I was going to be assigned to. And, immediately, I felt relieved because everyone who had done their ER rotation at County said that you wanted Dr. Greene as your intern because he’d push you hard and you’d learn a lot, but at the end of the day, he really cared about you and about the patients he served. I agreed with them by the end of the first shift.

“And I can honestly say that I don’t think I’d have ended up in Emergency Medicine if I’d been assigned to anyone else, because the work we do is not easy by any means. But it’s a little easier when you do it surrounded by people you like, and a lot easier when they’re people you love.”

Some of the guests let out “Awwws” as she glanced at Mark and Elizabeth and then snuck another glance at Kerry. 

“And I can think of no one better to join Mark in matrimony than Elizabeth, and that’s not just because I’ve been bothering him to marry her for years. And for anyone who thinks I’m kidding, I promise you that I told him to date her a couple years ago, and went so far as to describe Elizabeth as ‘nice, smart, and hot as hell.’ How could anyone not like that?”

The guests chuckled as Mark shrugged in acknowledgement that Susan really _had_ described Elizabeth that way (and meant it).

“But that only begins to describe Elizabeth,” Susan continued on. “She’s also kind, passionate, and most importantly, she always has his best interest at heart. And I know he has hers just the same.”

Susan inhaled deeply in an effort not to let herself choke up.

“We’ve held our breath a lot over the last six months, just as Mark and Elizabeth have held onto each other. And now that we have the chance to breathe again, there’s no better way to celebrate than with two hearts joined together.”

Susan took another deep breath and lifted her glass in a toast. Light tinkled as all the others did the same. 

“So, here’s to Mark and Elizabeth. You’ve come out of the woods healthy and together. And though I have no doubt that if you ever go back in you’ll do it together, here’s to hoping you never have to.”

Mark, Elizabeth, and several others gave a hearty “Hear, hear!” as they raised their glasses to toast and drink to the happy couple. Susan joined them in toasting each other and emptying her glass, which she almost immediately realized was a mistake as she had not yet eaten dinner, and thus rushed to the kitchen to scarf down her plate. 

At their table, Annie observed her mother with narrowed eyes over her glass of sparkling non-alcoholic grape juice as Kerry finished her second glass of sparkling _alcoholic_ grape juice. 

“Momma, are you okay?” 

“‘Course I am,” Kerry replied, her words slurring together slightly. “Why would you think I wasn’t?”

“You sound kinda funny.”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Kerry said, waving her away. 

This did not convince Annie, but she didn’t comment further and instead just watched Mark and Elizabeth share their first dance together. Susan returned to the table as the song ended. 

“You did wonderfully,” Kerry said as Susan put her hands down on her shoulders. “I don’t know what you were worried about.”

Though she muttered a word of thanks, a suspicious smirk grew on Susan’s face.

“You’re already drunk, aren’t you?”

“What? No. I’m not drunk.”

“I think she is,” Annie agreed, leaning forward to see Susan around Kerry. 

“Annalise, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But when Kerry shook her head and then grabbed the table as if suddenly dizzy, it appeared that Annalise _did,_ in fact, know what she was talking about.

“Yep. You’re drunk. Which means I can do the one thing I can only do with you when you’re drunk.”

“Susan, I’ll kiss you at any time,” Kerry said as sincerely as she could manage under the circumstances. “I don’t have to be drunk.”

“I’m glad to hear that, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” She held out her hand to Kerry. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Kerry asked as she stood up from her chair (and almost immediately wobbled).

“To dance.”

“Susan, I don’t want to dance.”

“I do!” Annie chimed in.

“There,” Kerry said as she pulled her chair back towards her. “Annie will dance with you.”

“I’ll dance with Annie in a second. But I’m dancing with you first.”

Kerry rolled her eyes, but let Susan step up to her side and wrap an arm around her. She reached for her crutch.

“Nope. Leave that here. I’ve got you,” Susan instructed. “Annie will make sure it doesn’t walk away. Right, Annie?”

Annie nodded enthusiastically, giving Susan permission to lead Kerry towards the dance floor. (And if Susan didn’t believe Kerry was drunk already, Kerry’s muttered concern as to _how_ her crutch could walk away without her would have sealed it.)

“How does this work?” Kerry asked when they’d found a spot. 

“Well, you put your hand up on my shoulder. And then I hold you here...” 

Susan placed Kerry’s hand on her right shoulder. She then wrapped her right arm around Kerry’s waist and pulled her close, enjoying the way Kerry seemed to forget how to breathe for a second at her touch.

“And then I take your hand.”

When she slipped her left hand into Kerry’s right, Kerry automatically stepped forward, closing the distance between them. Then, as her wine-soaked brain realized what she was now eye-to-eye to, her already-flushed cheeks grew even redder.

“Yes, you can put your head there,” Susan whispered as Kerry stared at her boobs (or where her boobs were under dress). “Just don’t make it obvious.”

Kerry nodded slowly before carefully laying her head on Susan’s chest. Susan rolled her eyes at the (very) comfortable sigh Kerry let out, but didn’t hesitate to pull Kerry closer to her.

“You know,” Susan mused quietly as they began to sway together, “most people say, ‘I only dance when I’m drunk’ because they make a fool out of themselves. But you only dance with your drunk because it’s the only time I can convince you to do it at all.”

Kerry did not respond other than to let out a small huff. (But she determinedly did not lift her head.)

“Do you remember when you got really drunk one night and put your crutch on the wrong arm and then accused Carter of hiding it from you? Or that one New Year’s Eve where you tried to sit down in the middle of the sidewalk because you were ‘too drunk to walk,’ so I had to carry you three blocks home to make sure you didn’t freeze to death? I think your mother would have grounded you if she hadn’t been so entertained.”

Susan smiled at the memories (and another huffed reply). 

“But, honestly, I think my _favorite_ memory of you drunk was on our first anniversary,” Susan continued.“We went to that bar and we’d both had a lot to drink. And, at one point, you asked me if I was single, and when I said I wasn’t, you burst into tears.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Oh, yes you did,” Susan insisted. “And I was drunk too, so I started laughing because I thought it was cute, and all the other women around us started giving me the stink eye.”

“Nu-uh.”

“It’s true! Every lesbian within a ten-foot radius looked at you, looked at me, and then looked at each other, like they were all thinking, ‘Can you believe this? That little redhead is pouring her heart out to her and she has the _audacity_ to laugh?’” Susan let out a sigh. “I had to kiss you before they jumped me. And also because it was the only way to get you to stop crying.”

Kerry lifted her head to narrow her eyes at Susan.

“That didn’t happen. You made that up.”

“Prove it.”

Unable to prove it (drunk or otherwise), Kerry just narrowed her eyes more and laid her head back against Susan’s chest. 

They continued to sway in place for a moment before Susan began slowly turning them in a circle. As she did so, she spotted their table, where Annie sat watching people dance. But it wasn’t Annie but rather the young figure approaching her that made her eyes grow wide. 

“Uh-oh.”

Kerry lifted her head again and glanced around. 

“What? What is it?”

Susan turned them a little bit more so that Kerry could see.

Annie was watching those on the dance floor and therefore didn’t notice Rachel approaching the table until she dropped into the vacant seat next to her. And, upon recognizing the visitor, Annie immediately crossed her arms and turned her face away with a huff.

“Relax,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “I’m here to call a truce.”

Annie glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. 

“A truce?”

“Yeah.” Rachel heaved a sigh. “It’s pretty clear that my dad is never going to date Miss Susan. He really likes Elizabeth and.... And Miss Susan really likes your mom.”

“I told you that a long time ago,” Annie said with a sneer.

Rachel nodded.

“You did. And I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

Though her arms were still crossed, Annie relaxed somewhat. She raised an eyebrow at Rachel. 

“Do you still play soccer?”

“Oh, no. I quit that a _long_ time ago.”

“Why?” Annie asked, frowning. 

“I didn’t have fun anymore,” Rachel replied with a shrug. 

“That’s too bad.” When Rachel looked at her in question, Annie shifted uncomfortably. “You were… You were a really good goalie.”

“Thanks,” Rachel said with a small smile. “What about you? Do you still play soccer?”

“Yeah. I’m trying out for a club team next week.”

Rachel nodded.

“You’re gonna make it,” she said, looking everywhere but at Annie. “You’re a really good midfielder. And you kick really hard.”

Annie muttered a word of thanks herself before the two fell into an awkward silence. 

“So…” Rachel said slowly. “Does this mean we can be friends now?”

Annie considered the question for a long moment and then shrugged. 

“I guess.”

From her vantage point several feet away, Susan watched closely for any signs of impending arguments as she and Kerry danced (Kerry having chosen to lay her head back down on Susan’s chest and close her eyes once more).

“Actually…” Susan said slowly, narrowing her eyes at the pre-teens across from her. “I think we’re okay.”

“Good,” Kerry mumbled back. 

The song they were swaying too began to slow to an end. Susan let go of Kerry’s hand, but Kerry just wrapped her arms around her in a bear hug and refused to let her move.

“I thought you didn’t _want_ to dance with me,” Susan remarked flatly as Kerry began to lead them in swaying to the next song. “And even if you suddenly _do,_ I owe Annie a dance first.”

“Annie can wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a little bit lighter than the last couple chapters. This was borne out of a want to see/discuss drunk!Kerry as well as make up for what is, in my opinion, the single biggest plothole in all of _ER_ : Elizabeth and Mark not inviting Kerry to their wedding because Kerry told them that she thought that Mark might not be quite back to normal yet. And, yes, she did end up calling the Medical Board for testing, which is not great, but it's more so about Elizabeth's reaction to getting the feedback. She is obviously hurting, which fuels her reaction, but I think that if just about anyone I know (including myself) were to learn from an esteemed medical professional colleague that they thought my fiancé who just recovered from brain surgery might have some lingering effects that could affect their ability to do their job, I would simply say thank you.
> 
> Like I know TV dramas have to stir up some drama from time to time, but from an outside perspective, not being willing to even _consider_ that the surgery could have had lingering effects just makes Lizzie look petty and, frankly, stupid. Which I know she's not, and therefore have a lot of beef with the _ER_ writers for making her appear that way. Perhaps it is my social worker senses going off, but her reaction did not seem at all in character unless it was explained as a side effect of the stress she was under. But it wasn't and Kerry was portrayed as the one at fault because she's just Like That. But in this case, her being Like That was completely correct and Elizabeth was in the wrong. Hence, fanfiction fodder. 
> 
> The next chapter is going to play off an idea I had that took place in the "uc" universe that I got in between finishing that and writing A Forest of Trees. If you're familiar with my other fics, you may guess to what I'm referring, but, as everything that is similar between that AU and this one, it'll have a little bit of a twist. And then things are going to get heavy again and will unfortuantely stay that way for most of the rest of the fic. There will still be some fun things, but they're interspersed between some not-so-fun things. I'd apologize for that, but I can only say that one of the heavy things coming is of my own creation. I'm just going to painfully reinterpret the rest :)
> 
> Hope you're all well! Until next time.


	37. Nature versus Nurture

Susan stood, arms crossed, next to the Ambulance Bay doors. Those who were clued in as to why she was doing this watched with smirks. Those who were not just looked on in confusion. 

The doors opened and Dave Malucci walked in, his head down as he tried to act casual regarding what had just happened in the ambulance outside. 

“So,” Susan said loudly as he passed, “how was it?”

Dave didn’t answer, but instead tried to speed up. But Susan easily caught up with him.

“No, I’m serious,” she said sincerely. “She was cute. How was it?”

“It was just a quickie,” Dave replied, holding his hands up defensively. 

“A quickie,” Susan repeated, nodding. 

“A quickie,” Dave confirmed. “What? You’ve never had a quickie at work?”

“No, actually I haven’t. Because, as a rule, you’re not supposed to have sex at work. And especially not when I told you to go see a patient…” Susan glanced at her watch. “... An hour ago. And when I just walked by, the patient still hadn’t been seen.”

Susan heaved a sigh, her shoulders drooping. 

“Come on, Dave. You’ve been doing better.”

“I’m sorry, but a trauma came,” Dave said with a shrug. 

“Right. Well, let trauma get back to her work, okay?”

Those in earshot at the desk all gasped or gaped at Susan's remark. Some exchanged glances, laughing to themselves as color rose in Dave’s cheeks. 

Susan, however, just made to turn back towards the desk, only to stop herself and turn back to face Dave.

“I’m sorry, Dave,” Susan said in a remorseful tone. “That was terribly inappropriate of me to say.”

“Yeah,” Dave said with a scoff. “It was.”

“I know,” Susan said, nodding. “You said it was a quickie. It would be wrong of me to assume she finished.”

There was a barrage of titters at Dave’s expense as Susan turned and started for the desk. She enjoyed the chuckling (considering it appreciation of her joke) up until the moment she spotted the Chief of Staff amongst the onlookers.

“Oh no. No, no, no. You weren’t supposed to hear that,” Susan said firmly as she raised a finger at a shocked Kerry. “And I can’t read your expression. Is that your ‘I’m really impressed and maybe a little  _ turned on’ _ face or your ‘You’re in a lot of trouble’ face.”

Kerry, who was still recovering from Susan’s comment to Dave (because she was really impressed and a little bit turned on) just blinked. 

“What?”

“I’m gonna take that as the first one,” Susan finished. “And figuring that you  _ probably _ did not come down to watch me brutally eviscerate a resident, what’s going on? Why’d you come down?”

Kerry opened her mouth to reply and then promptly closed it. She looked around for a moment as if trying to find some external reminder, but none came.

“I… don’t... know,” she replied slowly. “I just… felt like I should come down.” 

“Is it because Annie’s going to be here any second?”

Kerry considered this for a moment and then shook her head. 

“Well, it’s your turn to take her, so…”she said hesitantly. “So, no, I don’t think so.” 

“Right.” Susan straightened up, smiling. “Well, if you’re here, would you like to help out?”

Kerry glanced at the board and then at the clock.

“Eh, why not? I don’t have any more meetings today.”

As Kerry picked up a chart from the rack to review, outside, the school bus deposited Annie outside the Ambulance Bay. She happily hopped down and started for the doors (as she had special permission to use them instead of the public entrance) when she spotted someone familiar talking to someone off to the side of the bay.

Normally, she wouldn’t interrupt the conversation, seeing as chances were the redheaded woman she had spotted was working and, therefore, interruption would result in a firm talking to later, but Annie couldn’t help it, given how different the hairstyle was from when she’d seen it this morning. 

“Did you cut your hair?” she asked, tapping Kerry on the shoulder. 

But the moment the woman turned around, no matter how identical she may look to Kerry Weaver, Annie knew that she wasn’t.

“What was that, sweetheart?” the woman asked. 

If Annie had known the phrase  _ ‘What the fuck?’ _ her brain would surely have been repeating it over and over again as she looked the familiar-but-entirely-unfamiliar woman in front of her up and down.

It wasn’t just the hair that was different. The woman’s voice also sounded a bit lower than Kerry’s was and sounded a lot less like she was from Minnesota and more like she was from Chicago or somewhere else in the lower Midwest. But what really proved once and for all that this woman was  _ not _ her Momma was that there was no crutch dangling from her arm.

“Uh… Sorry,” Annie apologized as she took a step back. “I, uh… I thought you were someone else.”

The woman nodded, taking her turn to look Annie up and down. Then, she frowned. 

“Do I know you?”

Annie shook her head quickly and then promptly turned for the Ambulance Bay doors. 

She sped her way inside, ignoring the shouts of Lou the security guard (who figured the young redhead’s permission to use the entrance did  _ not _ extend to running). She didn’t look back at all as she was too busy scanning around for the right redhead. 

But as she came up short even as she arrived at the desk. Luckily, there was someone else who could help her. 

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”

“Annie, Annie, Annie,” Susan repeated as her oldest daughter came into view. “How was school?”

“Mommy, did Momma cut her hair?” 

“Not in the last ten minutes. And besides, I think she’s trying to grow it out again.” At the look on Annie’s face, Susan frowned. “What’s wrong? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“No…That’s not what I saw,” Annie said slowly. “There was a lady outside who looked exactly like Momma. Like  _ exactly _ like Momma, but her hair was short and she didn’t have a crutch.”

“So, you saw someone who  _ looks _ like Momma?”

“No. Well… yes. But when I say she looks like Momma, I mean she looks  _ exactly _ like Momma. But I knew she wasn’t Momma because when I tapped her on the arm and asked her if she cut her hair, she didn’t know who I was.”

“You’re just going to admit to talking to a stranger right in front of me?” Susan asked, her brow rising. 

“I didn’t think it was a stranger!” Annie insisted. “That’s how much she looked like Momma.”

“What about Momma?” a voice asked from behind them.

Annie turned to see Kerry approaching them. But instead of greeting her with a hug or a hello like she would normally, she just gave her a suspicious once over. 

“What’s wrong, dear?” Kerry asked, frowning at Annie’s expression. 

“There was somebody outside that looked exactly like you,” Annie informed her. “Exactly exactly. But she wasn’t you and it was really weird, because she didn’t know who I was when I talked to her.”

“In other words, Annie talked to a stranger,” Susan chimed in. 

“I told you I didn’t think she was a stranger,” Annie said imploringly to Susan before looking back to Kerry. “I  _ promise _ you. She could have been your twin. That’s how much she looked like you.”

Kerry nodded slowly for a moment. Then, her brow furrowed. 

“Do you feel okay?” she asked, raising a hand to Annie’s forehead. “You don’t feel warm…”

“I’m fine.” Annie pulled her head away from Kerry’s hand. “And I’m telling the truth! I  _ promise.” _

“Okay. You’re telling the truth,” Kerry said, raising her hands defensively. “Now, sit down on your stool until Mommy’s done. Then, she’ll take you to soccer.”

Despite the acceptance of the words, the tone with which they were said made Annie’s jaw clench in anger. 

“You don’t believe me.”

“No, dear. I don’t.”

“Well, then come look outside. Then, you’ll believe me.”

Kerry exchanged a glance with Susan, who just shrugged. Then, Kerry let out an exasperated sigh. 

“If I come out and look will you drop this?”

Annie nodded sincerely. 

This led to another sigh, but Kerry nonetheless followed Annie out the doors and into the Ambulance Bay. However, as it was nearly empty and clearly devoid of redheaded women (apart from themselves), this did nothing to support Annie’s claim.

“But...But….” Annie’s face fell somewhat as she glanced around. “Where’d she go? She was just here.”

Normally, Kerry would have just shaken her head and turned back around, but the genuine confusion in Annie’s voice worried her. 

“I don’t think you should go to soccer tonight,” she said after a long moment. “Come on. I want to take your temperature.”

Despite Annie’s protests, Kerry led her down to Curtain Three. When she slowed to a stop, she pointed Annie inside, but Annie refused.

“I’m not sick,” Annie said firmly. “I  _ promise _ you she was just here. You have to believe me.”

“Okay, she was just here. And if you don’t have a fever, I’ll believe you.”

“You could just believe me  _ now.” _

“Annie, take a second and think about what you’re asking me to believe,” Kerry said sternly to the display of what she felt was edging its way into insolence. “You honestly want me to believe that there’s some identical twin out there that you just  _ happened _ to see as you were coming in today?”

_ “Yes.” _

Kerry just shook her head and made to step into Curtain Three. 

“That’s utterly…” She stepped forward only to immediately stop as another woman appeared in the doorway. One that looked, in Annie’s words, exactly exactly like her. “...Ridiculous.”

For a moment, both women just stood there staring at each other as if they were staring in a very strange three-dimensional mirror.

Annie stared too for a moment before she could hang on no longer and stood up on her tiptoes to ask Kerry in a whisper, “Do you believe me  _ now?” _

It took this for the other woman to notice Annie was standing there. When she looked down to follow the voice, she frowned in recognition. 

“Hey, you’re the kid who talked to me outside.”

“Yeah,” Annie confirmed, nodding. “I thought you were her.”

Annie nodded sideways at Kerry, leading the other woman to look back at her. There was another moment of silence as they took it in before the other woman nodded.

“I can see why.”

It occurred to Susan around this same moment that she hadn’t seen Kerry and Annie come back inside yet from their trip into the Ambulance Bay. She started towards the doors herself before spotting Kerry down the hall and changing direction.

“Kerry, did you two find the - Holy  _ shit.” _

Susan couldn’t help the exclamation or the way her mouth fell open in shock. Almost immediately, she clamped her hand over her mouth. 

“Sorry… I just…”

“No, no,” the other woman said, shaking her head. “I think that’s, uh, how we both feel.”

The other woman then inhaled deeply and stepped back, seemingly to let them in to talk. But the moment she did so, she appeared to grow faint. Kerry and Susan both rushed to catch her and helped her to the nearby bed before she could pass out.

“Thanks,” she breathed. “That’s been happening lately. It’s, uh… Why we came in.”

“Right,” Kerry said, her head momentarily clearing at the fact that her newly-discovered sister was likely in the ER for a reason. “Why don’t you stay there and I’ll have a-a nurse come get you on a monitor.”

Kerry started to turn away, before she closed her eyes and turned back.

“What’s your…” She took a deep breath. “What’s your name and date of birth?”

“Tamara Collins,” the other woman replied. “And, uh, my birthday is April 15, 1961.”

Kerry nodded and was out the door on the way to the desk before Annie could exclaim that that was Kerry’s birthday too or Susan could ask which nurse triaged her in here (so she could hunt them down and find out exactly what was going on in their head when they did so).

Susan followed Kerry out the door and down the hall. But instead of giving orders to a nurse, she found Kerry on Annie’s Waiting Stool in Admit looking shell-shocked. 

“So…” Susan started slowly. “Apparently, Annie wasn’t kidding.”

The statement and the truth behind it made Kerry falter somewhat more.

“How could Annie not be kidding?” she asked rhetorically, her voice barely more than a whisper. “How could… How could this happen?”

All Susan could offer was a shrug and glares at any other staff whose expressions indicated concern and/or curiosity. 

“Susan, she…” Kerry’s eyes grew wider as the thought dawned on her. “She could know about my birth family. About my birth parents.”

Before Susan could reply, Kerry suddenly stiffened and started looking around panicked.

“You need to get Annie out of here.”

“What?” Susan asked, confused at the sudden change of topic.

“You need to get Annie out of here,” Kerry repeated urgently. “Take her to soccer. Take her home. I don’t care. She just… She can’t be here for this.”

“Okay…But, can I know why? ” Susan said slowly before quickly adding, “Not that I won’t. But… Why?”

Kerry closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. When she spoke, Susan had to lean forward to make out her words. 

“If she…If she knows about my birth family, she could know why I was given up. And if it’s…” Kerry bit her lip. “If it’s why I think it is, I don’t want Annie around to hear it.”

Susan looked at her for a long moment before she nodded in understanding. 

Kerry shook her head. 

“I’ve spent my life coming to terms with that. I never wanted her to have to.”

“Right,” Susan said quietly. “I’ll take her home. But she is in there right now.”

Kerry glanced around and, sure enough, realized that Annie had not followed them back out of Curtain Three. And when they returned there, it took three hissed “Come heres,” and the use of her trouble name to get her to come back out into the hall. 

“You and Mommy are going to go home,” Kerry said clearly as Annie joined them outside the room. “If you want to go to soccer, you can, but you don’t have to. But you can’t stay here.”

“I don’t want to leave. I want to stay and listen!” Annie said enthusiastically. “Momma, she could know about the family from before you were adopted!”

Annie’s enthusiasm waned as Kerry gently nudged Annie further down the hall. Once they’d moved further away from the door, Kerry closed her eyes and heaved a heavy sigh. 

“Annie, honey,” she said quietly, opening her eyes to look Annie in the eye.“I never told you why I didn’t go looking for my birth parents.”

“I thought it was because Grandma and Grandpa did a good job and you didn’t need to.”

“Well, that’s… that’s part of it. But it’s more so because…” Kerry inhaled deeply. “Because there’s a very real possibility that the reason I was given up for adoption was because of my hip.”

“Because of your  _ hip? _ Why would they...Oh. _ ” _ The incredulity in Annie’s tone evaporated at once and was replaced with solemn understanding. “Because they didn’t want a kid that was disabled.”

Kerry’s heart, which had been shaky to begin with and broke at Annie’s “Oh” nearly shattered at the look of somber contemplation on her daughter’s face.

“Not everyone is as okay with it as our family is,” Kerry offered. But at Annie’s extended moment of consideration, her heart began to beat faster out of worry. “What’s going through your head? Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I think…” Annie began slowly as she pieced her thoughts together. “Well, I think that if that’s why, then, they’re bad people and we don’t like them… But you should still ask them questions.”

Kerry stared. 

_ “What?” _

“Well, that settles that,” Susan said, looking between Kerry and Annie. “Can we go talk to your twin now before she vagals?”

“Yes!” Annie said, perking up. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Kerry said quickly, before looking back at Annie. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“I thought of something else, too,” Annie replied, “but I’m not allowed to say it.”

“Say it,” Kerry said. “Whatever it is, say it.”

Annie pulled herself up to full height. 

“If that’s why they gave you up, then they’re  _ stupid,” _ she said confidently. But then she paused, her eyes narrowing. “Since you told me to say it, I’m not gonna get in trouble for that, right?”

Kerry did not reply, but Susan gave a small shake of her head. But despite Susan’s reassurance, the way Kerry’s mouth seemed to work wordlessly for a moment as she processed Annie’s thoughts made Annie frown.

“Was I supposed to think something else?” she asked, concerned. 

“What? No, no,” Kerry said, jerking back to reality and then shaking her head quickly. She took a deep breath. “Let’s… Let’s talk to her.”

Annie lit up, but before they could proceed on, Susan stepped closer to Kerry and dropped her voice. 

“Did you ever ask a nurse to get her on a monitor?” 

“No, I didn’t get that far.” 

Susan nodded and excused herself to the desk to get Tamara’s chart. 

Annie bounced up and down on her toes in excitement, but waited until Kerry had taken a few deep breaths and seemed ready to go in. 

“If you’re coming in,” Kerry said to Annie in a firmer voice than she felt, “you must promise me you’re going to be quiet.”

Annie nodded her promise, but upon stepping inside Curtain Three and seeing not just her mother’s twin but also a teenager that bore the same amount of resemblance to her mother that she did to Kerry, the promise was immediately broken.

“Whoa,” Annie said as she looked the teenager up and down in awe. “You look like an older version of me!”

“Annalise, what did I  _ just _ say?”

“Sorry,” Annie said, taking a seat on the opposite bed before whispering, “But she  _ does.” _

“Wow, Mom. You weren’t kidding,” the girl said as she looked at Kerry. “I’m Britt.”

Kerry introduced herself rather awkwardly as she wasn’t sure where to begin. Britt then took a seat on the bed next to Tamara, leading mothers and daughters to exchange glances with each other. 

“So….” Kerry began slowly. “Uh, I’m not really sure where to begin.

“Me neither,” Tamara admitted. 

Annie looked between them and then offered, “Where are you from?” (ignoring the resulting look from Kerry).

“Uh, well, I’m from St. Louis,” Tamara replied. “I was the youngest of four, and was the only girl. I’ve got three older brothers. And, uh, now, I live up in Wisconsin. You?”

“I grew up mostly in Minneapolis. And I was….” Kerry drew in a deep breath. “And I was adopted.”

“Oh…. _ Oh.” _ Tamara sucked in air and shook her head. “Look, I didn’t know anything about a twin. I swear, I didn’t. And, uh… Well, my mom’s gone and my dad’s got dementia. Otherwise, I’d…”

Her words trailed off as she realized she wasn’t sure  _ what _ she would do or even what she could offer. 

But as another awkward silence threatened to fall, Susan returned along with Yosh to get the heart monitor set up. She couldn’t help but admire how Yosh kept his cool and barely even blinked when meeting Tamara, as she nor any of the rest of them (save for  _ maybe _ Annie) had been able to.

Once the monitor was attached and operational, Yosh retreated, leaving silence once more. 

“I should let you know,” Susan said to Tamara (fighting the thought that she was talking to Kerry), “that your insurance prefers you go to another hospital, so we’re in the process of getting the transfer set up right now.”

Tamara nodded. Beside her, Britt sat up.

“Hey, uh, Mom? Can I borrow your phone?” she asked.“I should probably let Dad and the others know what’s going on.”

Tamara nodded and gestured towards her purse, which was on the ground next to her. Britt rifled through it for a moment until she located the phone and then ducked out from the room to make her call. 

The others watched her go for a moment, before Kerry turned back to Tamara. 

“Is Britt your only child?” 

“Oh, no. I’ve got four. Three boys and a girl, just like… Anyways, she’s the baby.” Tamara cleared her throat. “And what about you? Is… I want to say your name was Annalise?”

“I go by Annie,” Annie informed her cheerfully. 

“Right,” Tamara said nodding as she looked back at Kerry. “Is Annie your only child?”

“No, I have two others,” Kerry replied. “Annie’s the oldest.”

Annie nodded happily. Tamara looked back at her for a moment before shaking her head slightly. 

“It’s kind of weird looking at you,” she said to Annie. “You look a lot like Britt did when she was your age.”

“Well, relationally, they’d be cousins,” Susan remarked from her place near the door, “but genetically, they’d be half-sisters.”

Kerry glanced back at her and gave her an expression of discontent. Annie, on the other hand, looked on in wide-eyed confusion.

“So, wait,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “I’m more related to her than I am to my actual sisters?”

Susan nodded in reply. Tamara just looked at Kerry and frowned. 

“My younger two are adopted,” Kerry said to relieve her confusion. 

As Tamara nodded in understanding, Annie looked between her and Kerry, wondering at which point Kerry was going to ask the question that was likely on everyone’s mind. And when a minute passed without it, she decided it was pressing enough to ask herself. 

“Do you have a weird hip, too?”

_ “Annie.” _

“I’m sorry, a weird what?” Tamara asked, looking between them for some kind of clarification. 

Kerry shot Annie a look as if reminding her of the promise she made before they came in and then let out a sigh. 

“A weird hip,” she repeated. “As in Congenital Hip Dysplasia. It causes the hip joint to develop, uh, abnormally.”

“No, I’ve never had anything like that,” Tamara replied, shaking her head. “Is that what… you have?”

Tamara supplemented the question by nodding at Kerry’s crutch (though it was by no means the most noticeable of the forearm crutches in the room).

“Yes.”

“I see. Well, that’s too bad,” Tamara said apologetically. “Is it genetic?”

“No, it’s congenital. Most people would call it a… a birth defect,” Kerry answered, wincing at the last two words. “But it’s more likely if a first-degree relative has it.”

“Which is why I have it!” Annie added brightly. 

“Annalise, if you talk again, Mommy is taking you home,” Kerry hissed. 

Susan noticed the look of confusion on Tamara’s face at Kerry’s seeming use of third-person. She smiled and raised a hand. 

“I’m Mommy,” she stated before pointing at Kerry. “She’s Momma.”

Tamara blinked for a second before the implications of Susan’s statements settled on her. She shifted uncomfortably for a moment and then nodded again. 

“Alright.”

Annie leaned forward towards her.

“I also have two dads.” At the look Kerry gave her, Annie insisted, “It’s only fair.”

Kerry didn’t have the chance to say anything before Britt came back into the room. 

She did not retake her seat on the bed next to her mother, but instead remained standing. She looked both absolutely beside herself and also acutely alarmed. 

“Speaking of dads,” Tamara said, not noticing Britt’s expression, “what did your Dad say?”

Britt’s brow rose in confusion. 

“What?”

“What did Dad say?” Tamara repeated. She glanced back at Kerry. “The kids’ dad and I divorced a couple years back, but we still get along pretty well.”

Kerry nodded, considering how similar that sounded to her own life, when Britt started wringing her hands.

“Okay, I’ll be honest,” she said slowly. “I didn’t call Dad. I called Uncle Brian.”

“Uncle Brian? What would you call him for?” Tamara asked, her brow furrowing in what Susan considered a very Kerry-like way.

“Well, he’s the oldest, and I wanted to ask him about the whole twin thing…” Britt’s look of alarm changed to one of sheepish shame. “...And he told me that Grammy was never actually pregnant with you. He said that she and Grampy just brought you home one day when you were a baby and made the boys promise not to tell you…”

Tamara stared for a long second. 

_ “WHAT?” _

Kerry was now bug-eyed, looking between the teenager and the twin. Annie and Susan did the same, their jaws dropping in surprise. 

Susan felt movement behind her and turned to see Yosh and a few others coming with a gurney to take care of the transfer.

And before her or anyone could even react, Tamara was moved from the bed to the gurney and ushered out of the room towards a waiting ambulance. The last thing they heard was Britt calling out, “It was nice to meet you!” before she disappeared with her mother down the hall. 

Those left in the room remained in shock for a second before Kerry rose from the bed to look at Susan. Annie followed her lead. 

Before she could help it, she asked, “Did she just learn she was adopted?”

Kerry nodded slowly. 

“Yes, I think she just did.”

She looked at Susan, who raised her eyebrows. 

“She’s probably never going to speak to you again.”

“No,” Kerry agreed, “I don’t think she will.”

The car ride from County home was quiet as the three of them thought about what had just occurred (the fourth being only a year-and-a-half old and therefore not only not part of the scene but completely unaware of what was going on at most times). But the moment they climbed out of the car and started up the path to the front door, Annie, it seemed, had considered it all she needed to and now had questions. 

She kicked off their shoes just inside the door and then continued on into the house in direction of the kitchen. Kerry and Susan had beat her there - Kerry having gone into the kitchen and Susan having taken a seat on a stool on the opposite side of the counter. 

“Momma!” Annie said happily 

“What, dear?” Kerry asked, as she set her crutch against the counter so she could take off her blazer. 

“If you have a twin, does that mean  _ I _ could have been a twin?” Annie asked eagerly. “And there could have been  _ two _ of me?”

“I don’t think I could have survived carrying two of you. And, besides,  _ one _ of you is quite enough.”

Kerry took Annie’s face in her hands and kissed the scoffing eleven-year-old on the forehead. 

“Actually, Annie,” Susan said, setting her chin in her hand, “I think it means it’s more likely that  _ you _ would have twins if you were to have kids when you grow up.”

_ “Really?” _ Annie asked excitedly. 

“That is an old wive’s tale,” Kerry said with a huff. 

“What is?”

“That twins skip a generation,” Kerry replied. “If anything, they’ve found that some people are genetically predisposed to release more eggs when they ovulate. Which would explain higher rates of  _ fraternal _ twins in some families, but not identical.”

“When you say ‘eggs,’ you mean like periods, right?” Annie asked, her brow furrowing. 

“Annie, what else would I be talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Annie said with an emphatic shrug. “That’s why I asked.”

Kerry fought the urge to roll her eyes. 

“Yes, I’m talking about periods. Now, go play outside.”

Kerry waved her on towards the sliding glass door that led out onto their deck.

“Take your sister with you,” Susan added, motioning to Charlie. “And please tell Caroline that we’re home early and will be out in a couple minutes.”

Annie nodded. She ran back to the front door to put her shoes back on before ushering Charlie on towards the door so they could join Suzie and their babysitter in the backyard.

No sooner than the door had shut behind them than did they hear Annie shout, “Hey, Suzie, guess  _ what!” _

When the girls departed, Kerry excused herself to go upstairs and change out of her button-down and slacks for something more comfortable. But as she returned to her place at the counter, she found Susan waiting for her expectantly. 

“How do you feel?” Susan asked as Kerry pulled two glasses from the cabinet. 

“About the fact that I have a twin sister I never knew about or that my existence accidentally caused her a family crisis?”

Kerry filled both glasses and then set them on the counter. 

“Both,” Susan said with a shrug. 

Kerry took a long sip of her water as she considered the question. 

“Well, for one thing, I’m grateful. My parents never kept my adoption a secret, which meant we never ended up with something like this,” she thought aloud. “But, mostly, I feel sorry for our birth mother.”

“Really? Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess…” Kerry paused for a moment. “I guess since I’ve always thought that it was just one - it was just me - it… it made it easier to harbor resentment.”

“About being given up?” 

“Not necessarily. I mean, I wouldn’t trade my parents for the world,” she clarified. “I think it’s more resentment about… about the worry it caused.”

Susan nodded. 

“But, really,” Kerry continued, “I think I feel the worst for my parents.”

“For your parents?” Susan repeated. 

“Yeah. Because they would have taken two in a  _ heartbeat.” _ Kerry picked at a spot on the counter for a moment and then sighed. “I guess this kind of cements the fact that they never knew anything about my biological family. Because if my mother had ever found out that there had been  _ two _ babies born, but she’d only been given  _ one, _ she’d have hunted the other one down and taken it home with her.”

“Even if it had already been adopted by another family?” Susan asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“You heard her. Her family already had three kids. My parents didn’t have any,” Kerry said with feigned sincerity before grinning. “That would have been her excuse.”

Susan rolled her eyes. 

“Well, by all accounts I’ve heard,” she said, “your dad was a pretty level-headed guy. So, maybe he could have stopped her.”

“He was a pretty level-headed guy,” Kerry agreed, nodding. “Level-headed and patient and gentle… Which is to say he had  _ no _ control over my mother. 

“Not that he  _ wanted _ any. Their’s was an equal partnership. But… no. He would not have been able to stop her. He’d have lectured her on why she shouldn’t do it while driving her there with a lawyer on retainer.”

They both laughed at the thought for a moment, before Kerry let out another sigh. 

“I know it’ll all hit me later,” she said thoughtfully. “But really I think the thing that surprised me the most about today was Annie’s reaction when I told her why I could have been given up. And maybe it’s because she’s a generation removed from it, but… but even when I was her age, before the shit hit the fan, that was the one thing I just… I just couldn’t live with.”

“What do you mean when the shit hit the fan?” Susan asked, frowning.

Kerry drank down the rest of her water and set the glass down on the counter. 

“When we moved back to the states,” she said without looking up. “You know, I spent a lot of my childhood traveling, and while I always  _ knew _ I was different, I never  _ felt _ it. Not until we moved back and I started school and, as my mother said, the world taught me shame.

“And I think about that sometimes. Like the concept of ‘nature versus nurture,’ because… because Annie and I have a fair bit of the ‘nature in common, and I think we have a lot of the ‘nurture,’ too. And I know that that doesn’t mean she’s going to… to learn it at some point soon, but the older she gets, the more I worry.

“Even  _ today. _ When I was explaining hip dysplasia to Tamara, her response was ‘Well, that’s too bad. And I know it’s probably not the first time that she’s heard something like that, but it still struck me how  _ careful _ I am. How careful my parents were. Because… Because my mom said that it was the world that taught me shame, because she and my dad  _ didn’t.” _

Kerry took a deep breath, shaking her head. 

“Growing up in the 60s and 70s, it would have been very easy for them to have sheltered me and pitied me and taught me that I couldn’t do things. But they didn’t. They let me figure that out for myself. And while it was always…  _ considered, _ it was seldom used as a reason to stop me from doing something.

“Like when I was six and my friends and I were climbing a tree and wanted to jump out of it, my mom didn’t tell me not to do it because I had a bad hip. She told me not to do it because I’d fall and crack my head open.”

“And did you? Fall and crack your head open, I mean?”

“No, she caught me mid-jump.”

Susan smiled at the mental image of a six-year-old Kerry jumping out of a tree and being caught by an unenthused younger Mildred (especially since the image was very similar to memories of another redheaded six-year-old jumping off of things and getting caught by an unenthused Kerry).

“It’s kind of like what we do with Annie,” Susan said. “I mean, if one of the girls comes in whining that her sister pushed her the only thing I’d do differently in the ‘Is there a bone sticking out? Are you bleeding profusely? No? Then, go back outside,’ spiel is asking if her hip’s okay. But I treat her the same as I do Suzie.”

“But when you ask about her hip, you’re not,” Kerry remarked. “What’s the other one? Not equality… equity? Treating her equitably? Where we treat them equally while still addressing the difference?”

“I guess,” Susan said, nodding. “Though, I’m pretty sure, in this case, it’s just acceptance.”

Kerry smiled slightly as Caroline the babysitter knocked on the sliding glass door. They took this as their cue to trade places with her so she could get back to her dorm, so they stepped outside onto the deck. 

Though they were still a couple hours north of sunset, the sun had already moved behind the trees, casting shade over the back yard. Susan and Kerry leaned against the railing of the deck, looking out over the yard where Annie and Suzie were chasing each other around while Charlie poked at the grass with a stick. 

“Has she ever told you that she feels different?” Susan asked as she watched the girls play.

“Not about that,” Kerry replied. “I think that as she gets older, she’s learning how much of a  _ Christian _ country this is. And since she’s not Christian, she feels different then. I don’t if she’s  _ made _ to feel different about it, but if she is, I’m sure she’s brought that up more with her dads than with me.

“And she’s said that there are other kids at school whose parents have divorced and remarried, but she doesn’t really feel like she can be part of conversations about it with them because her parents are so different. But, she’s also said that she doesn’t necessarily  _ want _ to be part of them, because so many of their parents fight or their step-parents don’t get along.”

Kerry breathed in deeply, the early September air filling her lungs. 

“I guess there’s hope,” she said with an air of finality. “Because she told me that when she feels different for being Jewish, it makes her all the more proud that she is. Proud of who she is and of her faith and her traditions. Maybe that’ll be how she faces adversity in the future.”

Susan nodded in acknowledgement for a moment. But as she watched the girls play, her nods turned to those of understanding. 

“I bet that’s  _ exactly _ what she does.” At Kerry’s glance, Susan smiled. “Because you guys are very similar in nature and nurture, but there’s one thing she has growing up that you didn’t.”

Kerry thought for a moment.

“More parents?”

“Sisters,” Susan replied. “Because the ‘When I feel different, it makes me all the prouder of who I am,’ sounds a whole lot like, ‘If you don’t like what I’m doing, I’m going to do it more just to spite you.’ Which is exactly what they do to each other all the time.”

Kerry chuckled, but nevertheless shrugged in acknowledgement. Susan pulled her close to her and kissed her on the cheek before the sound of footsteps coming up the deck stairs to their right drew her attention.

“And it’s exactly what you’re going to do to them when you’re big enough, isn’t it?” she asked in a high-pitched voice stepping forward to scoop Charlie up once she’d climbed up the top step.

“According to the conversation I heard yesterday,” Kerry said as Susan and Charlie came over to her, “she already is.”

“Charlie, were you pestering your sisters?” Susan asked, brushing one of the frizzy (brown) hairs behind Charlie’s ear.

“Yes!” the toddler said with a nod.

“Without hesitation,” Susan commented, chuckling. 

For a long moment, she and Kerry watched their older daughters run around. Silence fell between them, save for Charlie’s occasional babbles and the wind rustling through the trees. 

But no sooner had Susan thought how nice this was than her Mommy Instincts kicked in, and she narrowed her eyes. 

“Susan Marie, don’t you  _ dare,” _ she called out.

The blonde down below immediately spun around, her surprise at the shout preventing her from hiding the rock she’d just picked up off the ground. 

“I wasn’t gonna throw it at her!” 

“Yes, you  _ were,” _ Annie hissed. 

“Nu-uh,” Suzie shot back. “I was gonna throw it  _ next _ to you.”

“Next to her close enough to hit her?” Susan asked from the deck.

Suzie thought for a moment before offering a (lot less sure), “No…”

“I think I’ve had enough of sisters today,” Kerry remarked before poking Charlie girl in the belly. “Mine or otherwise.”

Charlie responded by leaning forward towards her, grabbing for Kerry. Susan handed the toddler off, but instead of Kerry putting Charlie on her hip the way she normally would, Charlie whined until Kerry agreed to carry her like a sack of potatoes under one arm.

“Do you have any interest in cooking?” When Susan shook her head, Kerry nodded. “Neither do I. What do you think, Charlie? Pizza?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

“No!”

“That’s what I thought.”

Kerry turned for the door. Susan watched with a small smile on her face as Charlie happily kicked her feet as Kerry carried her under her left arm.

She turned back to watch the girls for a couple more minutes (mostly to ensure no further rock-throwing attempts), before following Kerry back inside. 

Charlie was in the high chair at the dining room table. Her feet were still kicking happily, though now it was due to the small chunks of cheese and strawberry on the tray in front of her. 

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

“Is that the pizza already?” Susan said with an impressed frown.

“Can’t be. I haven’t ordered it yet,” Kerry replied as she put a few pieces of carrot in front of Charlie.

“I swear,” Susan remarked loudly as she crossed for the front door. “If it’s the guy from across the street about the raccoons in the trash can, I don’t give a-”

Susan cut herself off the moment she yanked open the door and saw the figure standing in front of her. 

She was older, her hair shorter and lighter than the last time they’d seen each other. But, even so, there was no denying who the woman in front of her was or the way Susan’s heart seemed to stop the moment they’d laid eyes on each other.

“Hiya, Suzie,” Chloe said with a small smile. “Can I come in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I say this a lot, but this one _really_ could have been two separate chapters. But, as I've said before, I have my chapter count carefully planned out, and apparently I care more about keeping that chapter count the way it's supposed to be than I do having consitent chapter lengths. Oh well.
> 
> This chapter is based on my AU-of-an-AU [Seeing Double](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21497437). I had a dream last fall that Kerry had an identical twin that she met when the twin came to County. Even in the dream, I knew it was set in the "uc" universe, and it turned into a long one-shot because the idea was just too good to pass up. And it felt like it would be a good fit in this AU as well, but would have a little different spin thanks to the presence of one Annie Levin. I'd like to thank AO3 user AlynnaStrong for her comment on the other fic that, if it were an _ER_ episode, it would be called "Nature vs Nurture." They are exactly right and, upon reading that comment, I felt very much like Mike Schur when Chris Pratt imporivsed a funnier line in _Parks and Rec_ than Schur had written. 
> 
> Also, we have a reappearance! We're at the beginning of Season 8 (so hold on tight), which, of course, is when Susan Lewis returns to County in canon. But since Susan Lewis has been here the entire time over in _this_ universe, we get a _different_ Lewis sister's return. 
> 
> And, finally, I just have to point out that the conversation at the beginning of this chapter came to me several months ago (as part of the "uc" universe) and felt too perfect to go to waste. The fact that Dave Malucci and Susan Lewis were never on the show at the same point is disappointing _only_ because I think he would be a very good target for Susan's wry humor. 
> 
> Anyways, I'll leave it here for tonight. I certainly gave you enough to read as it was. 
> 
> Until next time!


	38. Never Say Never

“Six years.”

“I know.”

“Six  _ years.” _

“I know.”

“Where the  _ hell _ have you been, Chloe?” Susan said through gritted teeth. “You dropped off the face of the earth. I thought you were  _ dead.” _

“I know and I’m sorry,” Chloe said sincerely. “I’ll explain everything, I promise. Can I please come in?”

Chloe made to take a step forward, but Susan’s arm remained firmly in place, blocking her way in.

“How did you even find me?” Susan asked in a low (and frankly  _ dangerous) _ voice. “You couldn’t have looked me up in the phone book, so how the hell did you find me?”

“I stopped by the ER,” Chloe explained. “Your friend, the tall bald guy, he recognized me. I explained what I was doing there and how I wanted to find you, and he gave me your address.”

Susan stared for a moment, mentally cursing Mark Greene, both for giving Chloe her address and also for not having the decency to call her and let her know that. 

“Please, Suzie. I know you’re mad and you have every right to be,” Chloe said quietly. “Just please let me explain what happened. Just so you know. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just want to let you know what happened.”

Susan stared for another long moment before exhaling and lowering her arm. She stepped aside to let Chloe in. 

Immediately, Susan turned on her heel for the kitchen. Chloe started to follow her, but Susan shut her down with a look. 

“Who was it?” Kerry asked as she wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Was it the guy across the street?”

“No,” Susan replied in a voice barely more than a whisper. “It was Chloe.”

“Chloe? Chloe who?” Kerry asked before suddenly looking up. “Wait, Chloe your  _ sister _ Chloe?”

Susan nodded firmly. 

“Apparently she stopped at work and Mark gave her our address,” Susan informed her. “She wanted to come in and to tell me what happened.”

Kerry nodded, but her brow knitted in confusion. Susan’s voice was low and angry, which didn’t seem to align with Chloe’s offer to tell her what had happened and how Kerry thought that was something Susan would want.

“Do you want her to leave?”

“No, I want her to tell me what happened.”

“Okay,” Kerry said slowly. “So, is she still out on the porch then?”

Susan shook her head. She leaned sideways to look back into the foyer, where Chloe stood looking at the pictures on the wall leading into the house.

“I’m going to talk to her,” Susan said, looking back at Kerry. “I need to know.”

“Okay,” Kerry repeated, nodding. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just…Just keep feeding Charlie and… and order dinner.” Susan’s hard expression hardened further. “I’m sure she won’t be staying for long.”

Susan inhaled deeply and turned back towards the foyer. For a moment, she just observed her sister at a distance. 

She’d gained a little weight in the time since they’d last seen each other, and there was the beginning of lines on her face. But she looked clean and put together, her hair recently cut to just above her shoulders, which Susan expected wouldn’t have happened if she had just gotten off a six-year bender. 

“Is that her?” Chloe asked in quiet awe. 

She pointed at a framed photograph of Suzie in her ballet costume from her recital that spring. Suzie was posing in first position with her hands held out in a circle in front of her. Her hair was slicked back into a bun and she was wearing stage makeup, the gaps where she’d lost teeth showing as she smiled at the camera. 

“Yeah,” Susan replied stiffly. “That’s her.”

Chloe nodded and, for a second, it looked like she might gently stroke the picture frame. But she didn’t, and instead glanced around at the other photos on the wall.

“Who’s this redheaded girl?” she asked, pointing at a picture of Annie and Suzie reading together and then looking at Susan. “She’s in a lot of the pictures. They best friends or something?”

“They’re not best friends, they’re sisters,” Susan informed her simply. “That’s Annie. She’s my wife’s daughter.”

Chloe happened to look at one of the larger pictures on the wall at the same time Susan said the word ‘wife.’ And, as she looked at what was clearly a posed family photo, with Kerry and Susan wearing similar colors to those of the matching dresses all three girls wore, she frowned. 

“Your wife?” she asked with a small scoff. “You saying that you turned gay since the last time I saw you, Suzie?”

“I’m not gay, I’m  _ bi,” _ Susan said, her jaw clenching. “And I’m pretty sure I told you that a long time ago, Chloe.”

To Susan’s surprise, Chloe didn’t chuckle or argue or say anything about it further. She just sighed, nodding.

“You probably did,” she admitted. “I must have forgotten. Sorry.”

The genuine apology took Susan aback so much that she could only stare in shock. It took forcing herself to turn towards the living room and wave Chloe to follow her to finally snap out of it. 

They sat down on the couches opposite each other. Chloe glanced around and mumbled something about Susan doing well for herself before tense silence fell. 

“So, what happened?” Susan asked, motioning for Chloe to talk. “Start from the beginning. Start from the night you left. What happened?”

Chloe paused for a second, thinking. Then, she grimaced

“I’ll be honest, Suzie… I don’t really remember. I was high as a kite,” Chloe admitted with an air of sheepishness. “And I was… I was pretty much high the entire time during those first couple months.

“And for a while, we really  _ did _ do the flea market thing. I guess a perk to being high all the time was that, sometimes, we thought trash looked like treasure. And a couple times, it really was. We’d pick stuff up from off the side of the road and then take it to the next auction or swap meet. We made good money for a while. Did you… Did you ever get my card?”

“Yes, I did,” Susan said, remembering the night she found $3,000 in a Christmas card all those years ago. “Frankly, Chloe, I thought you got it dealing.”

Susan expected Chloe to recoil, but she didn’t. 

“I don’t blame you,” Chloe replied with a small shrug. “But, I didn’t. I found a really nice armoire in a garbage dump. Got us four grand off it, but… but unfortunately that was the last good find we had. After that, pieces only got maybe a couple hundred at most. And that was mostly gas and food and a couple more hits. 

“By that point, it wasn’t so much about making money to buy a house. It was about making money to get high. We were out west by then. I got a job at Wendy’s just so I could get enough to pay for the motel where we were living and to get me through the week. 

“But by then, I needed more and more. I was getting… I was getting tolerant to it. It took more to get high, so I started running out before I got paid. I’d start withdrawing and I’d think, ‘Maybe this time, I’ll do it. I’ll withdraw and I’ll get clean and I’ll go back.’ But every time I got sober enough to go to a meeting, I’d remember all that I’d done. How I treated you. How I treated  _ Suzie. _ And every time, I’d feel so guilty that I’d go get high again. I’d get high just so I didn’t feel the guilt and-and that just made me feel even more guilty.”

Chloe hung her head in shame. And even though Susan had seen the expression hundreds of times before, this time it was different. This time… it was real.

“Before I knew it,” Chloe continued in a quieter voice than before, “it was May. It was Mother’s Day. And I thought of Suzie and how she’d be turning one soon… And I told the others and they left and came back with our hits for the day. We were supposed to spread them out, but I didn’t. I took them both at once and OD’d.”

“You overdosed?” Susan asked, sitting up in alarm. 

“Yep. I woke up in an ER in Phoenix, Arizona, where we’d been living.” Chloe let out a small chuckle. “I was so loopy as I came down I kept thinking I saw you. I kept looking for you. The nurse said I kept asking too. ‘Where’s Dr. Lewis? Where’s Dr. Lewis? She’s gotta be around here somewhere.’”

The way Susan’s heart stopped at seeing Chloe had done it again at the knowledge that when she was out in Arizona, she’d OD’d. And though Chloe chuckled at the memory of looking for her sister in the ER she ended up in, it only served to make Susan’s blood run cold.

“And the thing about Narcan is that it throws you straight into withdrawal,” Chloe continued. “And it took a couple hours before my head cleared, but when it did, I realized that one hand had the IV drip keeping me from going back under and the other was handcuffed to the gurney.”

“They arrested you for overdosing?” Susan asked in disbelief. 

Chloe shook her head. 

“Nah. They arrested me for the dope and the needles in my pocket,” Chloe explained with a sigh. “Apparently, the two guys we were living with got us the hits that day because they robbed the dealer. They ended up with ‘Intent to Sell,’ while the rest of us just got ‘Possession.’”

Susan had to fight the way her jaw wanted to fall open. 

“The reason you didn’t come back was because you were in  _ prison?”  _ Susan’s breathing began to quicken. “Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t get ahold of you,” Chloe said, shrugging. “I tried. The house number was the first thing I called, but somebody else picked up.”

“Well, what about Dad? Did you call him?”

“I did. But he didn’t know how to get ahold of you either.”

“And he didn’t try to… to get you out? To get you a lawyer?”

“You know Dad,” Chloe said with a sigh. “Test pilot for Barcalounger. It takes a lot to get him out of it.” 

“Chloe, you are worth getting out of it for,” Susan said firmly. 

Chloe gave her a small smile of gratitude, though she didn’t seem to believe Susan’s words. 

“How long were you in there?”

“Eighteen months. I don’t… I don’t want to talk about it,” Chloe said quickly and without prompting. “It wasn’t good. But, uh… But if anything good  _ came _ of it, it was that I finally got clean once and for all.

“I started going to meetings while I was inside and actually… actually committed to it this time. I didn’t do anything while I was in there. And when I got out, I got into a halfway house. I lived there for six months, did my ‘Ninety Meetings in Ninety Days’ to appease my parole officer, but I would have done it anyway.”

“How long were you on parole?”

“Two years,” Chloe replied. “I went to my meetings, I met with Diana, my parole officer, and I… I just started my life again. I got a job at Lowe’s. Found an apartment.”

“So, if you got out at the beginning of ‘98 and were on parole for two years…” Susan said slowly as she did the math. “You got off parole at the beginning of last year.”

Chloe nodded. 

“So, then why did it take you until  _ now _ to come back?”

Chloe took a long pause. When she spoke again, her voice was shakier. 

“Because I was scared, Suzie,” she admitted in a voice full of sorrow and sincerity. “I was scared. Scared of seeing you again. Scared of everything I missed. And… and scared of relapsing.”

“But you said you’ve been clean for years,” Susan said in a hopeful voice, though she was not filled with hope at all at the moment.

“I have been,” Chloe said, nodding. “But my sponsor warned me that coming back… that seeing the same people, going to the same places.... It would make me want to use. And if you add being scared, it’s just…”

Chloe forced herself to take a deep breath. 

“I needed to be clean for five years,” she said, exhaling slowly. “I needed to prove to myself that I could go that long and that it wasn’t a fluke.”

“But even if you waited five years, that would still be May, right? It’s September.”

Chloe nodded and started to respond, but was cut off by the sound of the sliding glass door opening and footsteps plus or minus the sound of crutches rushing into the room.

“Mommy!” Suzie called out as soon as she spotted Susan. “Do you have Charlie?”

“Momma’s feeding her,” Susan replied, pointing towards the dining room. 

“Oh good,” Suzie said, letting out a relieved sigh.

“Suzie thought she ran away,” Annie said, rolling her eyes.

_ “No, _ I thought she went under the deck,” Suzie corrected. “But when I looked under the deck and she wasn’t there,  _ then _ I thought she ran away.”

Suzie didn’t see the way Annie rolled her eyes again, as she was still panting from running up into the house. Once she’d caught her breath, she noticed Chloe and straightened up.

“I didn’t realize you were talking to someone,” Suzie said, stepping back. Then, she turned to Annie. “Can we go play in your room?”

“No, I don’t want you in my room,” Annie said firmly. “Let’s go play in  _ your _ room.”

“I don’t want  _ you _ in  _ my _ room,” Suzie said, crossing her arms.

“Go play in the basement,” Kerry ordered, cutting them both off from arguing further.

Both girls looked at her and then looked at each other, before shrugging and starting for the basement door.

Susan waited until they’d disappeared into the basement before turning back to Chloe. Chloe, however, continued to stare at the door, a look of pride, sadness, and longing in her voice. 

“She’s beautiful,” she whispered. “And she looks so happy.”

“She is,” Susan assured her, nodding. “She might not appear so when she has sisterly arguments, but I think she’d be less happy if she didn’t have them.”

Chloe smiled slightly and then let out a watery chuckle.

“Do you remember that one time we were arguing over a shirt or something and fell down the stairs together?”

Susan let out a chuckle of her own.

“You knew it was mine, so you wouldn’t look at the tag when I tried to show you what size it was,” Susan said, rolling her eyes. “We lost our footing when we were tugging on it and it ripped.”

“How old were we?”

“I’m pretty sure you were fifteen.”

Though it was distinctly not a  _ good _ memory, decades of time and lessons learned made them both laugh at the thought. 

As their chuckling subsided, Chloe heaved a heavy sigh. 

“There’s one other reason I waited so long to come back,” she admitted, biting her lip. “I just found out that I’m pregnant again.”

“Really?” Susan asked, unsure of whether the fluttering in her chest was excitement or fear.

“Yeah. But, this time, it’s not an accident.” Chloe gave Susan a small smile. “A few years ago, I met a guy at a meeting. He came to the meeting in a shirt and tie, so I stopped him afterwards to see if he’d had court that day. He told me he was due in court, but not on any charges. He said he worked for the courts as a court stenographer. 

“His name is Kevin. He hasn’t used in almost twenty years. Not since he was in high school. But he still goes to meetings to make sure he didn’t ever start again. We started dating not long after that and ended up getting married last year. Nothing fancy. Just us and a Justice of the Peace.”

The smile that crept onto Chloe’s face as she talked about Kevin didn’t linger for long as she closed her eyes and bit her lip again. 

“I want them to know each other,” she said softly. “Not as sisters, but as cousins.”

She opened her eyes and scanned Susan’s, looking for some indications as to her sister’s feelings. 

“At every meeting, we ask God to grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, to give us the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to tell the difference,” Chloe explained, an air of slight desperation edging into her tone. “I know that I cannot change what I did to you and what I did to Suzie. I’ve accepted that. But…But I don’t want that to be where it ends. 

“I’m not asking to be in her life as her mother. I know… I know that, at this point, I’m not her mother anymore. But I’d like to be in her life as her aunt. The way… The aunt I knew you would be to her.

“And it doesn’t have to be all at once or all the time. Just… Just maybe you come out and visit us sometimes, and maybe we come out and visit you sometimes. Spend a vacation together from time to time or-or see each other on holidays.”

“You’re not moving back?”

Chloe shook her head, partly relieved at the question and that Susan did not have some other kind of initial response to her request. 

“No,” Chloe answered. “We’ve got a decent little life going out there. He likes his job with the state and I just got promoted to manager. We actually just put an offer in on a house.”

Susan smiled. 

“Congratulations, Chloe,” she said, her sincerity clear in her words. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you.” Chloe’s brow furrowed. “So, what do you say, Suzie? Could… Could they be cousins? Would you be okay with that?”

Susan inhaled deeply and then nodded. 

“I would be okay with that.”

Chloe let out a sigh of relief at her sister’s agreement much like Suzie had sighed in relief that her sister had not somehow figured out how to undo the latch on the gate in the yard (or had climbed up onto the fence post to do so). 

Chloe glanced at her watch. 

“I should probably get back to the hotel.”

“You’re leaving already?”

“I’ve got an early flight out of O’Hare. Trying not to use  _ too _ much of my vacation time right now, because Kevin wants us to take a little vacation around Christmas before the baby comes in March.”

Susan couldn’t help but smile at the way Chloe lit up a bit as she told Susan of her and her husband’s plans. 

They both stood up as there was the sound of rumbling footsteps once again, this time coming up from the basement. Within seconds of Susan and Chloe standing up, Annie and Suzie had burst out of the basement door. 

“Momma, Annie hit me,” Suzie complained as she slid into the kitchen. 

“Annie, did you hit her?” Kerry asked in a tired voice. 

“No, I didn’t,” Annie replied earnestly, before shooting Suzie a look. “I was using one of my crutches to point to something and she walked into it.”

“Nu-uh,” Suzie shot back. “You swung it at me.”

“Ladies, we have a guest,” Kerry said, motioning to the living room. “So, please cut it out.”

Annie and Suzie immediately stiffened as they remembered that Susan had been in the middle of a conversation when they came in earlier. They turned to see both Susan and the guest walking towards them and not only quieted down, but backed their way into the kitchen as the women passed them. 

When they reached the door, Susan thought to pull her phone from her purse and have Chloe put her contact information into it. 

As Chloe typed in her phone number, she looked up to see Annie and Suzie poking their heads out from around the corner of the kitchen. She smiled and waved at Suzie, though both girls returned it. 

Chloe handed the phone back to Susan. 

Both Lewis sisters observed each other for a moment, seemingly deciding whether to hug each other or not. But given that only a short while ago, Susan had been seriously debating kicking Chloe off her property, she figured it still may be a bit too soon for that. 

“I’ll call you when I land, okay?” Chloe offered as Susan opened the door again. “That way I can add your number to my contacts.”

Susan nodded, leading Chloe to smile and step back out onto the porch. She paused briefly to wave at Suzie/the girls once again before stepping down off the porch and starting for the El station down the block.

Susan watched her go for a long moment. As the thought settled on her that this would hit her later just as much as the existence of a twin would hit Kerry, both girls sped from the kitchen towards the door.

“Mommy, who was that?” Suzie asked as she stood on her tiptoes to try and see out the windows on either side of the door.

Susan heaved a sigh. 

“That was Aunt Chloe.”

Suzie dropped to flat feet and spun around. 

“Aunt Chloe?” At Susan’s nod, her eyes grew wide. “She wasn’t here to take me away, was she?”

“Oh, no, honey. Of course not. You’re not going anywhere.” Susan stepped forward and scooped Suzie up into her arms. “She just came by to tell me that you’re gonna have a baby cousin soon.”

“A baby cousin?”

“Yep. A baby cousin.”

Suzie cocked her head in thought. Susan took the proximity to her to blow a raspberry on Suzie’s belly before putting her down.

“If she has a baby that’s my cousin,” Suzie thought aloud, “wouldn’t it also kind of be my sister?”

“Genetically, you would be half-sisters,” Susan said, nodding. “So, you’re gonna have a cousin that’s your half-sister and a sister that’s actually your cousin.”

Suzie frowned. 

“Who?”

“Charlie. You know, because Mommy gave birth to Charlie and Mommy’s sister gave birth to  _ you, _ so technically you’re cousins.”

“I have a cousin who’s technically my half-sister,” Annie chimed in, only to then frown in confusion. “Why  _ is _ she technically my half-sister?”

“Because her mom and your mom have the same DNA,” Susan replied simply. “You get some of your genes from both parents, which is why siblings look alike or look like their parents in different ways because they get slightly different genes from each parent. But identical twins come from one egg split into two, so they are exactly the same. In other words, the only difference in your genes from her genes is that you have some of your genes from your Daddy and she gets some of her genes from  _ her _ daddy.”

Annie and Suzie considered this for a moment. They exchanged glances before Suzie let out a huff. 

“Our family is weird.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so, a couple things about this chapter:
> 
> 1) Chloe was originally supposed to return while Susan was recovering from giving birth to Charlie. However, as I was planning the chapters, it didn't quite feel like it fit there. Something else that was supposed to take place around that time was also cut out because I didn't really like it, so things got shuffled around. That's when I was reminded of the whole twin thing and realized it would work so much better for her to return now. 
> 
> 2) I went back and forth for a while as to whether or not I wanted Chloe to still be a mess or not. But as I thought about it more, I realized that I didn't want that. I wanted her to have the positive life change that she got in canon Season 2, but with a more realistic timeline. Sure, some people can turn their lives around in less than six months, but it made more sense to me that if she was going to _really_ change, it would take longer. Once I made that decision, a lot of stuff started filling itself in.
> 
> 3) One thing that I wanted to address when it came to Chloe is that I wanted her to come to her own terms as to how to proceed with Suzie. In this case, it's been six years. A significant amount of time has passed, well more than both canon and the "uc" universe. She's been through more, and her experiences have shaped how she views this part of her life. Sometimes, you do have to do as the Serenity Prayer says and accept the things you cannot change. She understands that she can't change what has been done, but she can do better the next time.
> 
> 4) This is in no way an endorsement of incarceration as a means to get off of drugs. For one, drugs are rampant in prisons and it can be harder for incarcerated individuals to stay clean. For two, The War on Drugs criminalized addiction and has turned the prison system into a (terrible) alternative to drug treatment. However, I have heard a lot of addicts talk about their addiction, and there _are_ people who managed to get clean and sober due to run-ins with the law. 
> 
> Ultimately, I wanted this to be a little lighter too, because the next several chapters are not going to be. Until next time.


	39. Family Emergency

Mark set a chart down in front of Susan.

“I saw the guy in Three and I agree with you.”

“Great, but do you need to yell?” Susan asked, wincing at the (normal conversation) volume of his voice. 

Mark just chuckled. 

“Annie still at it with the French Horn?”

“The girl just won’t quit,” Susan groaned. “We’ve put limits on how long she’s allowed to practice, how  _ loud _ she’s allowed to practice… even what room in the house she’s allowed to practice in, and yet, she cannot be deterred.”

“You’ve got the exact opposite problem of most band parents,” Mark said with a small smile. “Everyone else has to beg their kids to practice. You’ve got to beg yours to stop.”

Susan shook her head and let out a sigh. 

“I’ve always wondered what goes through Kerry’s head when she gets an idea and puts all her energy into it,” Susan thought aloud. “But, if Annie’s any indication, it’s just ‘I’m really excited about this.’ And, of course, it’s winter, so she doesn’t have soccer to entertain her, nor do we have an excuse to send her outside.”

Mark nodded, though it wasn’t in agreement or understanding.

He’d have given  _ anything _ for his eldest to be an indomitable overachiever instead of a struggling middle-school stoner. 

When Rachel arrived out of the blue a few months back, he’d felt blind-sided. Everything Rachel had told him - the fights with Jen, the problems at school - it felt like it came out of nowhere. She seemed fine when she’d visited for his and Elizabeth’s wedding last April. How could everything have fallen apart in only a few months' time?

But the unfortunate truth of it was that things had been falling apart for a while, and not all of it had to do with Jen.

She and Jen had been arguing for years about how much Rachel was allowed to see Mark. In truth, the arguments had started as early as a few months after their divorce, when Jen sued for full custody. Neither Mark nor Rachel had been very happy about this, which began the turmoil between mother and daughter. But over the last year, it had started to spiral out of control. 

Jen, gifted in the law but not in matters of pediatric mental health, took Rachel’s increased isolation and decreased interest in completing her schoolwork as the beginnings of typical teenage angst and punished her accordingly. It was  _ not _ this, however, but grief over the fact that her father could die from a brain tumor that led to her so-called ‘acting out.’

But Mark didn’t do much better, as he and Elizabeth had gotten so wrapped up in the surgery and all that followed that they didn’t invite Rachel to visit before  _ or after _ their trip to New York. Yes, Elizabeth had called to let her know it had been successful, but the fact that nobody felt it important that she physically visit him weighed heavily on her. She didn’t see him until the wedding, where so much focus was on the cancer being  _ over _ that nobody bothered to ask her how she felt while it was happening.

But, of course, Mark didn’t know anything about this. All he knew was that Jen and Rachel’s arguments had grown to the point where they were fighting daily and Jen had had enough. And coming to Chicago and moving in with an increasingly-stressed step-mother who appeared to resent her being there only seemed to make things worse.

“I’ve got to run upstairs,” Mark said, shaking his head in an effort to clear her thoughts. 

Susan gave him a thumbs up, not looking up from her review of the chart she’d requested his opinion on. 

No sooner than he had excused himself to go upstairs than did she hear Kerry and the French Horn Player in Question approaching the desk. 

“You can take a break for one night,” Kerry said in a voice just short of a snap. “In fact, you should. Your embouchure will thank you.”

“My embouchure is fine,” Annie said, waiting to roll her eyes until Kerry couldn’t see her.

At their arrival, Susan straightened up. 

“What did the rheumatologist say?” 

“For her or for me?” Kerry asked tersely. 

“Both?”

“I do not have arthritis,” Annie stated with confidence, “and both of my legs are the same length.”

Susan looked to Kerry and raised an eyebrow. 

“Given her tone, is it safe to assume those things are not true for you?”

“Momma  _ does _ have arthritis,” Annie replied for Kerry. “But both of her legs are the same length.”

Kerry, who had shot Susan a look at the question, immediately shot Annie one too. She pointed Annie to her Waiting Stool.

“Sit,” she ordered Annie. “Daddy called to say he’s running late, but he’ll be here soon.”

Annie nodded and slipped her arms out of her crutches so she could take her French Horn case off of her back (and then her backpack, which was underneath it, thankfully devoid of textbooks). 

“Also, I grew two inches since I saw the doctor right before school started,” Annie informed Susan happily. “Which means when I grow another three, I’ll be as tall as Momma.”

“It certainly explains why your shins hurt all fall,” Kerry remarked. “And here we were thinking it was because people spent two hours kicking at them every night.”

“Does this mean a new pair of crutches?” Susan asked, glancing from Kerry to Annie and back.

Both redheads nodded, one with a wide grin and one with a small nod. 

“I already picked out the color. This time, they’re going to be  _ fuschia,” _ Annie said cheerfully before deflating. “But I have to use two of Momma’s old ones until I get them.”

“And we’re not referring to Momma’s old ones as ‘boring’ again unless we want to get grounded, right, Annie?” 

Annie replied by pouting (but did not, as she had done three times upstairs resulting in this threat, call them boring again).

“Hey, Dr. Weaver?” Chuny called out as she jogged down the hall. “They need you in Pedes Trauma Two. Dr. Greene’s daughter’s in trouble.”

Kerry and Susan immediately exchanged glances and then rushed to follow Chuny. And, because their concern was too great to consider turning back to warn Annie not to follow them, she followed them towards the Pediatric Trauma Center next door.

“What happened?” Susan asked as they followed Chuny down the hall.

“Dr. Corday showed up in an ambulance with Ella. Apparently, Rachel had amphetamines in her bookbag and Ella got into them. She’s in SVT and it’s causing failure.”

“Rachel had  _ amphetamines _ in her backpack?” Susan asked in disbelief. “She’s  _ thirteen.” _

“I don’t know,” Chuny said, raising her hands defensively for a moment before pushing the doors to the Pediatric Trauma Center.

She turned down the hall towards the Pediatric Ambulance Bay and the pediatric trauma rooms next to it. 

Inside Pedes Trauma Two, they could make out Mark, Abby, Chen, and Elizabeth inside. Chuny pushed the doors open, leading Susan and Kerry inside. Annie, however, hung back, watching from outside the door.

“Oh, Lizzie, you look awful,” Susan said before she could help herself.

Elizabeth scoffed, but, to Susan’s credit, she was right.

Elizabeth looked almost bad enough to warrant a trip to the ER herself. She was diaphoretic, her skin was pale and clammy. The stool she was sitting on was almost certainly put there in an effort for her not to pass out. 

“Where’s Doug?” Kerry asked, trying to figure out why the director of the Pedes Trauma Center was absent from such a high stakes trauma.

“He’s in Miami at a conference,” Abby informed her.

Kerry nodded, though it did little to explain the absence of the  _ other _ three pediatricians employed by the Pedes Trauma Center. But given the crying nine-month-old on the table in front of her required her attention more. 

“Still in SVT?” Kerry asked Chen and Abby.

“Yeah,” Chen replied. 

“Have you tried-”

“Push three of adenosine,” Mark said, cutting Kerry off. 

“Mark, we both know how difficult it can be working on a family member-” Kerry began in what she hoped was a reassuring tone.

But Mark just ignored the arrival of both her and Susan, who had started looking for IV supplies not for the care of Ella, but for her mother.

“Get ready with diltiazem,” Mark instructed. When Kerry opened her mouth again, he curtly asserted, “Kerry, I’ve got it.”

“No,” Kerry said firmly as she crossed around the table. “No. You need to step aside. “

“I said I’ve got it, Kerry,” Mark repeated. 

But despite the curtness of his words, Kerry just laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. He turned his head to look at her. 

“Calcium channel blockers can cause cardiovascular collapse and death in kids under one.”

Of course they did. He knew that. He knew that. So, why would he…? What did…? 

He just stared at her for a moment, before swallowing hard.

“Push one milligram of Inderal,” he said in a far shakier voice than a moment before. 

“God, Elizabeth, you’re soaking wet,” Susan said in concern. “Put this in your mouth.”

She held out a thermometer in front of Elizabeth, but Elizabeth just pushed it away.

“Susan, please.”

Susan ignored this and instead just raised a hand to Elizbaeth’s sweaty forehead.

“Your pulse is thready. And you’ve got a fever.”

“It’s just gastroenteritis,” Elizabeth said firmly as she pushed Susan away again.

Kerry and Susan exchanged glances for a second, before Kerry turned back to the monitor. Right as she did so, Abby announced, “Sinus rhythm.” 

“Thank God,” Elizabeth said, letting out a breath of relief. 

“Let’s get Elizabeth to bed and run in two liters of saline,” Kerry said to Susan.

Susan nodded and put her hands on Elizabeth’s arms, but Elizabeth swatted her away again.

_ “I’m not leaving,” _ Elizabeth said through gritted teeth.

“If you don’t, you’re going to pass out,” Susan said in an even voice (though it was a bit more firm than Kerry would have used in the situation). “And that won’t help anyone. Least of all Ella.”

When Elizabeth still wouldn’t budge, Susan glanced up at Mark for help.

“She’s okay,” he reassured Elizabeth, nodding her on as he did so. “She’s stable now, okay? Go lay down.”

Elizabeth paused for a moment before she began to stand up. Susan put her arm around her, worried she may suddenly collapse. 

“I want to be able to see her,” Elizabeth said in a voice that had been intended as a demand but came out as close to a sob.

“I’ll set you up next door,” Susan said, nodding. 

But just as she and Elizabeth had stepped through the door to the next room and Kerry took her place at the trauma table, the monitor started beeping loudly. 

_ “Dammit.” _

“Pulse ox down to eighty-eight,” Chen announced, reading from the machine. 

Mark put his stethoscope to Ella’s chest, doing his best to hear the sounds of her lungs over her cries. 

“Lungs are full of fluid,” he said as he straightened up. “Fifteen of Lasix.”

“We should think about intubation,” Kerry stated. 

Immediately, Mark froze. 

“I can get her out of failure,” he said quickly.

“She’s retracting,” Chen observed.

“And using accessory muscles,” Kerry added. “She’s in respiratory distress.”

“Let the diuretics have a chance to work.”

But Kerry just ignored his demand and told the others, “Put her on the Broselow tape and bag her 100%.”

“No,” Mark interjected, “you’ll hyperinflate the stomach.”

Mark reached to stop her, but she just laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Your baby is hypoxic. I know you want to avoid unnecessary procedures, but if we don’t intubate now, it’ll be a mistake,” Kerry said in a gentle voice before firmly adding, “Now, step aside.”

Mark looked down at Ella’s face. He’d been avoiding doing so so far so he didn’t have to see the pain, because he knew as soon as he did, he’d falter. 

“Rate… Failure was… was rate-related,” he said in a broken voice. “I-I… We broke the SVT.”

“But now she’s in pulmonary edema,” Chen informed him.

“Mark, if this was anyone else, you would have intubated her a long time ago,” Kerry said in a low but clear voice. “I know how terrifying it is when it’s your baby girl on the table, but you know what needs to be done.”

On the other side of the door to the exam room, Elizabeth looked from Kerry to Susan, who, having finished starting a line in Elizabeth’s left hand, was now half-hugging Elizabeth.

“What is she talking about?” Elizabeth asked in alarm. 

Susan let out a sigh. 

“The first time we met Annie was on the trauma table,” she replied quietly. “But she was okay. And Ella’s going to be, too.”

Though Susan’s hand moved back and forth to comfort and reassure Elizabeth that everything would be fine, deep down, she wasn’t sure how sure she was. 

A few feet of cement brick and glass away, Annie stared at the table as Kerry called out for the necessary medications to intubate Ella. 

“Annie!”

She turned to look behind her to see who was shouting after her when she saw Rachel Greene jogging towards her. 

But as she neared the trauma room, she slowed, her eyes widening. 

“Is that my sister?” she asked, her whispered words full of dread.

Annie nodded, looking back at the scene in the trauma room just in time to see Kerry flick open the scope and use it to open Ella’s little mouth. 

A little mouth that Annie thought looked too much like her littlest sister’s mouth. Yeah, Charlie was older than Ella was, but she still liked to put things in her mouth. 

“They said she got something out of your backpack,” Annie remembered aloud. She glanced at Rachel. “What did you do?”

“It was an accident,” Rachel replied in a tiny voice, unable to look away as her baby sister was hooked up to a ventilator. “It was an accident.”

Kerry and Chen monitored Ella’s vitals as the PICU prepared to move her upstairs. Susan spotted Annie in the hall and escorted her back to the desk in the ER to wait for Michael. When she returned, she spotted Carmen stepping out of the elevator.

“Hey. Thanks for coming down,” Susan said as she and Carmen fell into step.

“Thanks for paging me,” Carmen replied with a nod. “Any changes since you called?”

As they reached the trauma room again, they heard Mark’s voice shouting down the hall. They both turned to see him and Rachel several feet away, and, before Susan could say or do anything, Carmen held up a finger to her and turned for him. 

Where everyone else was stepping away from the irate physician, Carmen walked right up to him as he shouted at Rachel and placed her hand on Mark’s shoulder. 

“Dr. Greene, could I have a word?” she asked in a calm voice. 

Mark looked at her, shrugging her hand off as he turned. 

“Stay out of this, Carmen.”

He turned back to Rachel, but Carmen put a hand on his arm again.

“Dr. Greene, I insist that you please step back so we can have a word.”

“I said  _ no, _ Carmen,” Mark said, shoving her hand off again.

But this time, instead of putting her hand on his arm, Carmen stepped in front of him, putting herself in between him and Rachel. 

“Dr. Greene, step back,” she said again firmly. 

“Carmen, this is my daughter,” he said, pointing at Rachel. “This isn’t just a patient-”

“I understand,” Carmen said, nodding. “And I just heard you call her ‘stupid’ and ‘a liar’ in the same sentence. And while she may have done something stupid and told a lie, I don’t think you mean to imply that she is permanently either of those things.”

“This is between me and her over what she just did to her sister,” Mark said loudly, looking over Carmen at Rachel.

“Dr. Greene, you have just been through a trauma,” Carmen said, her tone carefully controlled and quiet enough that only he could hear her. “It makes sense that you are upset, and it makes sense that you need to blow off steam. But you cannot do that to your daughter, or you will end up with two daughters having experienced a trauma this evening. And I know that is not something you want.”

Her hand still raised as if holding Mark back, Carmen looked back over her shoulder at Rachel. 

“Rachel, why don’t you go sit down over there,” Carmen suggested, nodding towards an open bench down the hall. 

Rachel nodded quickly and scurried away, tail between her legs. Carmen watched her go before turning back to Mark. 

“You can’t interrupt me when I’m talking to my daughter,” Mark said angrily. “She poisoned her sister. She could have permanent brain damage, low IQ, developmental delays-”

“All of which are very concerning and would make any parent upset,” Carmen assured him. “It’s common to feel angry when you feel powerless and scared.”

“I’m angry because she gave her sister amphetamines-”

“It was her fault that her sister got into the amphetamines,” Carmen said, nodding again. Then, she shook her head. “But she did not give her sister the drugs.”

“She as good as gave her the drugs-” Mark bellowed.

“It was indeed her fault that her sister got into the drugs,” Carmen repeated, “but, short of handing her sister the pills, she did not give her sister the drugs.”

Mark blinked.

“You’re angry that this happened,” Carmen continued in the same calm voice. “You have a reason to be angry and you have a reason to need to blow off steam. I would be happy to take you somewhere to blow off that steam if you’d like. You are welcome to reprimand her and punish her, but I will not permit you to blow off steam on your daughter.”

Carmen’s eyes flicked towards Rachel. Mark followed the glance. 

“She is clearly remorseful,” Carmen pointed out. “And she clearly understands the gravity of the situation. Shouting at her and calling her names will only make things worse.”

She looked back up at him. 

“Why don’t you go join your wife in the exam room,” Carmen said, motioning towards the room where Elizabeth sat. “I will be with you two in a moment.”

Mark stared for another moment before glancing once again at Rachel and then heaving a sigh. 

He turned on his heel and started for the exam room. Susan watched him go by, before looking at Carmen, who had joined Rachel on the bench. 

(Clearly, there was a reason Kerry had put her in charge of The Trauma Center™ Employee Assistance and Debriefing program. )

Mark took a seat on the bed next to where Elizabeth was still hooked up to the IV. Her hands were on her knees and she still looked peaked, but she looked a little less dehydrated.

“Where’s Rachel?” Elizabeth asked, glancing at him out of the side of her eye.

Mark swept his glasses off his nose and buried his head in his hands.

“Carmen’s talking to her.”

“Carmen?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“What? She nearly kills our daughter and then she gets to talk about her feelings with a social worker?”

“I was yelling at Rachel and Carmen interrupted me,” Mark explained. “She says she’s going to be in in a second to talk to us.”

“We don’t need to talk to a social worker,” Elizabeth hissed. “We need her to go home.”

“Elizabeth, she  _ is _ home.”

“You know what I mean, Mark,” Elizabeth said darkly. “She needs to go back to St. Louis. Back to Jen.”

Mark raised his hands, not in defense of himself, but of Rachel.

“I’ll talk to her-”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Elizabeth seethed. “I will not bring Ella home so long as she’s living there. Either she goes… or I do.”

Mark didn’t need to look at her to know how serious she was.

“I’ll… I’ll figure it out.”

Susan waited in the hall until Carmen had finished meeting with Mark and Elizabeth. Soon after she left, Mark followed, feasibly to take Rachel home. 

She gave Elizabeth a moment of quiet before taking a seat on the bed next to her and heaving a sigh.

“The PICU called. They’ve got her admitted,” she informed Elizabeth quietly. “Once the line’s run through, you can go up to see her.”

Elizabeth nodded, though she did not look up.

“They can’t set up a cot for you on the unit, but Robert Romano has apparently offered to scare everybody out of the surgical on-call room if you want to sleep there tonight,” Susan continued. But then she grimaced. “I really think you should go home though. You still don’t look too good, and the stress is just going to make you feel worse. I’m on all night tonight, though. I’ll go up and check on her and send you regular updates via text. I promise.”

“I’m not going home.”

“Elizabeth, I know you want to be near her, but you  _ need _ to take care of yourself-”

_ “No.”  _ She looked up at Susan, her bloodshot eyes wide with firm sincerity. “I’m not going home until she’s gone. And that’s final.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I woke up to a message this morning from one of my friends who was asking how I'd deal with the time skip. I started to think, "I thought I already planned that out with making her two years older than Annie..." Apparently, I didn't do it quite the way I thought I did, and Rachel would only be thirteen going on fourteen in this chapter. However, as I tried to work out how to potentiall fix/adjust/BS my way out of that, it occured to me that, while the show aged Rachel up, things still could have gone wrong in the same way. And if the same thing happened when Rachel was just thirteen, that would make it much _, much_ worse.
> 
> For chapters like this where a lot of dialogue is taken and/or adapted directly from an episode, I go back and rewatch short clips over and over again as I transcribe what's going on. This one was particularly difficult, not just because of what was happening on-screen, but also for Mark's response to Rachel immediately after. That's what prompted the scene with Carmen, as, if a 'troubled child' who just inadvertantly led to their younger siblings medical emergency is expressing remorse and concern, getting yelled at is only going to further the problems leading to their being 'troubled.' There's a whole essay for a family therapy class in that, I'm sure.
> 
> Have a good rest of your day/night. Until next time.


	40. Twenty-Eight Days

_ Day One _

“How’d you sleep?”

“I didn’t.”

“How’s the nausea? Have you managed to keep anything down?”

“Not as of yet. But I haven’t tried.”

“I’ll get you some crackers from downstairs. How’s Ella?”

“Vitals are stable, but it’ll be a few days before we know if there’s any long-term damage.”

“Mm-hmm. Have you talked to Mark yet?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

_ Day Two _

“You look better.”

“I feel better.”

“Good. How’s Ella?”

“Alright.”

“Showing any improvement?”

“Still too early to tell.”

“Right… Any improvement with Mark yet?”

“I called the house and Rachel picked up. So, no.”

_ Day Three _

“Here. Drink this.”

“What is it?”

“Chai latte from the new place down the street.”

“Thank you. And, before you ask, no, I haven’t talked to Mark.”

“Alright.”

_ Day Four _

“Are you alright? You don’t look good.”

“I know you’re going to roll your eyes, but you really need to talk to Mark.”

“I am happy to talk to Mark once he sends Rachel home.”

“Elizabeth, I really don’t think Rachel should go home right now.”

“Right. Then it appears we have nothing left to talk about.”

_ Day Five _

“For the love of  _ God, _ Susan-”

“I just came to see how you were. I heard Ella’s tests came back negative. That’s great news.”

…

“It is. The doctor says she should be released any day now.”

“That’s great. Have you-”

“No.”

_ Day Six _

“Susan, I swear, if you ask me again-”

“I was going to ask if you’d see my patient in Exam Five. I think his appendix burst, but he has atypical symptoms. I figured I should get a surgeon’s opinion.”

“Oh. Well, alright then. I’ll be there in a moment.... For a second there, I thought you were going to ask if I’d talked to Mark.”

“I was.”

_ Day Seven _

“Have you-?”

_ “No. _ Stop asking me.”

_ Day Eight _

“Did you switch places with Mark in the trauma just so you could bother me?”

“No, he asked me to switch so you wouldn’t be uncomfortable.”

“Well… Well, that’s very kind of him.... But it changes nothing.”

“Lizzie-”

_ “Don’t call me that. _ Only my  _ friends _ call me that, and, right now, you’re being more of a nuisance than a friend.”

_ Days Nine through Fourteen _

“Don’t.”

“Okay.”

_ Day Fifteen _

“What? I told the doorman that I didn’t want you to come in, so you wait on the street for me? I should have you arrested for stalking.”

“I wouldn’t have to stalk you if you just talked to your husband.”

“I don’t have anything to say to my husband, and I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“Maybe your husband has something to say to you.”

“I’m sure he does. But I’ve made it very clear that there is only one condition under which I will speak to him. And that condition has not yet been met.”

“I’m sure there’s other conditions that might change your mind.”

“I can assure you there are  _ not. _ Now, leave me alone.”

_ Day Sixteen _

“Hey, Dr. Corday, Dr. Romano called for you. He said he’s stuck in TIPS procedure. Are you able to stay down here for a few more minutes.”

“If I have to.”

“Great. I’ll let him know. Oh, and I meant to ask, have you and Dr. Greene talked-”

“No, Abby.”   
  


_ Day Seventeen _

“Elizabeth, I wanted to speak to you and Robert about surgical expenditure over the last quarter. Would you be able to meet me in my office around 3 pm this afternoon?”

“Sure.”

“Wonderful. How’s Ella doing?”

“She’s fine, and I know what you’re doing, Kerry. Don’t.”

_ Day Eighteen _

“Do you know where we keep the paid gas bills? I think there’s a problem with our most recent one and I wanted to compare them before I called.”

“In the bottom drawer of my desk in a file labeled ‘Paid.’”

“Thanks.… How are you?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“I’m okay.”

“Good. What happened to your eye?”

“My eye?”

“It looks delayed somewhat when you blink...”

“Oh, uh, a patient punched me.”

“Really? I didn’t hear about that.”

“Well, I… I didn’t want it getting out. Getting clocked by an LOL’s not exactly something I want everyone to know.”

“I see.”

“How’s Ella?”

“Perfectly fine.”

“No problems at all?”

“Not one.”

“That’s… That’s great. I’m so glad.”

“Me too.”

… 

“Is there something you wanted to tell me, Mark?”

“...No. Why would you think that?”

“Just something someone… Never mind.”

_ Day Nineteen _

“Lizzie! Just the person I wanted to see.”

“What do you want, Robert?”

“Just checking to see if you completed the paperwork for Thompson’s M&M on that 20-year-old splenectomy.”

“Yes, I did. It’s in your box.”

“Great. And what about the M&M on you and Greene?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Heard through the grapevine you were considering divorce.”

“I don’t know where you heard that, but it’s not true. We’re just… taking some time apart.”

“Whatever you say. But, uh, you may want to get to talking to him before he starts to think it’s permanent.”

_ Day Twenty _

“Elizabeth, do you know where the chart for Mr. Lieberman is?”

“I’ve got it.”

“Oh, good. I was starting to think it walked off or Frank had tossed it out.”

“Frank is your desk clerk. I’m sure he would never do something like that.”

“Well, he threatens to, so I try to stay on my toes. Oh, by the way, Susan was looking for you.”

“About a patient?”

“No. Something about talking to Dr. Greene. Is it true you still haven’t talked to him yet?”

“Yes, Carter, it is. And I don’t think you nor Susan nor anyone else need to worry about that.”

_ Day Twenty-One _

“Are you happy?”

“That depends. Did you talk to him?”

“I couldn’t, because I spent all of the last week dodging your cronies.”

“My cronies?”

“Out to do your bidding. Susan, this is getting out of hand. If you do anything else, I am going to be forced to report you to HR, if not the police.”

“Elizabeth, I promise you. If you just talk to him, you will understand why I’ve been pushing you so hard.”

“I have made it exceptionally clear to you, to him, and to everyone in this bloody hospital that I will only go back if Rachel is gone.”

“Elizabeth, I’m not asking you to go back. I’m asking you to talk to him.”

“I will  _ not. _ And if you so much as  _ look _ at me wrong in the next week, I will see to it that you aren’t allowed within twenty feet of me, personally  _ or _ professionally.”

_ Day Twenty-Two _

…

_ Day Twenty-Three _

_ … _

_ Day Twenty-Four _

_ … _

_ Day Twenty-Five _

_ … _

_ Day Twenty-Six _

_ … _

_ Day Twenty-Seven _

_ … _

_ Day Twenty-Eight _

Elizabeth cooed at Ella as she slipped the ten-month-old’s pant back on over her freshly changed diaper.

“How’s that, my love? Better?”

Ella only let out a gurgle in response, but nevertheless smiled when Elizabeth hoisted up to kiss her on the cheek and then settle her on her hip.

“Now, we’re all set,” Elizabeth said in a cheerful high-pitched tone. “And we’re ready to go to the store. Right, Ella?”

Ella smiled broadly before burying her face in her mother’s neck (and, by extension, hair). 

There was a knock on the door.

Figuring it was the hotel maid ready to clean, Elizabeth called out, “Just a moment,” before slipping her purse and the diaper bag over her shoulder. But when she opened the door, she did not find a cleaning lady and her cart, but rather one Susan Lewis.

“How did you get in?”

“I told the front desk that I was here to visit you.”

“And they let you in?”

Susan nodded.

Elizabeth let out a huff and tried to push past Susan out the door, but Susan wouldn’t let her. 

“Move.”

“Elizabeth, I did what you asked,” Susan stated firmly. “I haven’t talked to you in a week. I even requested Robert Romano specifically for three different surgical consults.”

“Oh,  _ boo hoo _ . You had to work with a different surgeon because you’ve driven the other one mad. It must have been terrible.”

Elizabeth made to push past Susan again, but Susan still wouldn’t budge.

“Elizabeth, please,” she said in a low voice. “I’m  _ begging _ you. Talk to Mark.”

“Mark, Mark, Mark,” Elizabeth snapped. “That’s all you care about, isn’t it? You want your best friend to be happy again, so instead of admitting that he had a hand in this at all, you just pester me until I’m ready to sue.”

Susan looked taken aback. 

“Elizabeth, I care about you just as much as I care about him,” Susan said sincerely. 

“Well, you certainly have a funny way of showing it.”

“I have a funny way of showing it?” Susan repeated, unable to keep her jaw from falling open in shock. “Elizabeth, I have come here every day for almost a month-”

“To bother me about speaking to a man who will not fix the problem he caused,” Elizabeth finished. “It was  _ him _ who let Rachel stay and it is  _ him _ who refuses to send her away.”

“And I told you before,” Susan said through gritted teeth, “she really shouldn’t leave right now.”

“And I’m telling you she has to before I will even  _ think _ of talking to him.”

Knowing she would not be able to push past Susan, Elizabeth turned back to the bed. She set Ella down first before putting her purse and the diaper bag back down too.

But as she was turned around, she didn’t see the way Susan inhaled deeply, her expression hardening. 

“You know what? That’s  _ it. _ I’m done with this.” Susan pointed down the hall. “Go talk to your  _ fucking _ husband, Elizabeth.”

It was Elizabeth’s turn to drop her jaw in shock.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. Go talk to your fucking husband.”

“Susan, I have said over and over again that there is only one condition that has to be met: He puts Rachel on a bus back to St. Louis,” Elizabeth said, stepping forward towards her. “That’s the only thing I’ve asked for, and yet he hasn’t done it. And I, for one, see no other circumstance that would result in me changing my mind on that.”

_ “He’s DYING, Elizabeth.” _

Every bone, every muscle, every individual cell in Elizabeth’s body stopped in an instant. It felt like the oxygen in her lungs suddenly ceased to exist as her heart began to scream in agony.

“... What?”

“He’s  _ dying,” _ Susan repeated, though this time her words were not shouts but nearly sobs. 

“It’s… It’s back?”

“It’s back. It’s back and there’s nothing he can do about it this time. He’s got  _ months.” _

The screams of agony ripping through Elizabeth’s heart began to burn her from the inside out. Starting deep in the tissue, the pain began to stream through her, pumping through her in place of her blood. 

“Well, then, why didn’t you tell me  _ BEFORE?” _ Elizabeth roared, the burning of her pain fueling her fury as much as it did her sorrow. 

“Because he made me swear that I  _ wouldn’t,” _ Susan replied, fighting back hot angry tears of her own. “Because he said that he didn’t want you to come be his wife just because he’s sick. But you know what? That’s when you’re supposed to be his wife more than ever. 

“I have tried to keep my promise to him. I’ve spent the last month trying to get you to talk to him of your own volition, but  _ clearly _ that’s not working. So, fuck it. And while I’m at it? Fuck  _ you _ for making him choose between his daughters. 

_ “Yes, _ Rachel’s a mess, and,  _ yes, _ he has had a big hand in her  _ being _ a mess, but she is  _ just _ as much his daughter as Ella is. And we both know he would never ask you to send away your daughter, so why the hell are you making him?”

“I tried to make the best of it,” Elizabeth shot back, matching Susan’s tone. “But he wouldn’t do what needed to be done to control her, and I did not consent to being her mother-”

“Yes, you  _ did, Elizabeth,” _ Susan said, cutting her off. “You consented to that when you married Mark. You don’t get to choose the parent and not the kid. They are a packaged deal. You get both or you get neither.”

For a moment, both women just stood there, breathing hard. Then, Susan shook her head. 

She stepped forward and took Elizabeth’s hands in hers. Elizabeth flinched like she might pull away, but she didn’t.

“You’ve been dealt a shitty hand, Elizabeth. No one will deny that,” Susan said in a much softer but still grave. “But staying here? Refusing to talk to him, refusing to forgive him unless he does the unthinkable? It’s just going to make the hand more shitty.”

Susan looked at Elizabeth for a moment and then dropped her hands away. 

“And if that’s what you want? If that’s what you choose? Then, you’re right, Lizzie. I’m  _ not _ your friend. Because that’s not something my friend would do.”

Susan inhaled deeply and then stepped back, raising her hands defensively. 

“I’m done. You want an end to me bothering you, fine. Consider this the end. It doesn’t matter anyway because you know the truth now.” Susan raised a finger at Elizabeth. “If you care about him at all, put this behind you and go be his wife. And if you don’t, whatever. You won’t be his wife for much longer.”

_ Day Twenty-Nine _

Susan’s grouchiness had already resulted in her accidentally snapping at Gallant over nothing. But even apologizing to the med student hadn’t helped alleviate the headache that was the reason for her foul mood. 

She’d slipped into the lounge in between patients to take Tylenol, but it had been over forty-five minutes and had still not taken effect. Not that she thought it would, though. There was only one treatment for guilt headaches and acetaminophen was not it.

“Hey, Dr. Lewis?”

Susan glanced up from the computer in front of her.

“Yeah, Pratt?”

“You said you were looking for Dr. Corday, right?” When Susan nodded, Pratt informed her, “She just finished with my patient in Exam Four.”

Susan nodded and muttered a word of thanks. She saved the entry she’d been making into the electronic health record (a frustrating new system called  _ EPIC™  _ that was a headache all its own) and then rose from her stool. 

The walk to Exam Four felt longer than it normally would, which was no doubt because she was sure arriving there would result in Elizabeth flaying her within an inch of her life. A flaying that Susan wanted to avoid not because she didn’t think she deserved it, but because she knew that she did. 

When Susan finally stepped into Exam Four, she didn’t immediately process that there were no patients in Exam Four, meaning Pratt had likely facilitated the meeting on her behalf. She had thoughts only of her relief that they were alone and her trepidation at what that would lead to. 

Both women were silent as Susan drew even with where Elizabeth stood off to the side, away from any potential onlookers spying through the window on the door. But before Susan could inhale deeply and begin her apology, Elizabeth stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her in a bear hug. 

The instant Susan hugged her back, they both began to sob uncontrollably. The hug, it seemed, could communicate all the heartache that words at the moment could not.

They stayed like that for a long time until Susan finally broke the hug apart. 

“I would hug you more,” she said through tears, “but your hair was starting to suffocate me.”

Elizabeth let out a watery chuckle as Susan proved her point by pulling a long blonde curly hair out of her mouth. 

Once she flicked the hair away (and made that  _ blech-there-is-a-hair-in-my-mouth _ look of disgust), Susan opened her mouth. Elizabeth stopped her with a hand.

“Thank you,” she said in a small voice. 

“Elizabeth, you shouldn’t be thanking me,” Susan said sincerely, shaking her head. “I was out of line and-”

Susan cut herself off when Elizabeth raised a hand. 

“Thank you,” Elizabeth repeated, “for being the only one with the guts to yell at me.”

Susan’s brow furrowed in confusion. Elizabeth exhaled deeply. 

“Everyone has been walking on eggshells around me since everything with Ella.” Elizabeth took another deep breath. “I got… I tried so hard to forget everything that happened last year that I forgot that cancer is the kind of thing that tends to come back.”

At the last few words of the statement, Susan could hear the tears rising again in Elizabeth’s voice.

“Elizabeth, I promise I wouldn’t have pushed you so hard if I didn’t think the stakes were high enough.”

Elizabeth gave her a small smile. 

“You were doing your best to keep your promise to him, while also  _ not _ keeping your promise to him.”

Susan nodded and then let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I wish it didn’t take that.”

Elizabeth gave a bit of a shrug.

“Sometimes, it’s not just the hair that’s thick. And… And that’s something you should be able to rely on from your friends,” Elizabeth remarked. “For caring about you enough to yell at you when you need it.”

Susan smiled for a brief moment before the sadness settled back over her. 

“I meant it when I said that I care about you just as much as I do him,” Susan said, taking Elizabeth’s hand and squeezing it. “You were my friend before you two got together... and you will be my friend after he’s gone.”

Elizabeth tried to bite her lip to keep it from trembling, but it didn’t do as much as she’d hoped. 

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Susan put her purse down on the front table and kicked off her shoes.

It was Thursday, which explained the lack of (much, much better) French horn practicing from the downstairs bedroom. Music still wound itself through the house, though. It was a classical tune that Susan recognized as the one Suzie would be dancing to at her upcoming ballet recital. Given that it seemed to be emanating from the basement, Suzie was no doubt practicing her spins across the padding they’d placed over the concrete.

She paused when she reached the kitchen, a small smile growing on her face despite the anguish rooted in her heart. 

Kerry held Charlie’s hands, humming along with the music as she and the toddler danced together. Charlie appeared to be leading as she looked down at her and Kerry’s feet, pulling her mother in the direction she felt they should turn. 

Susan watched them for a long moment before Kerry and Charlie turned far enough for Kerry to spot her. And, once she did, Charlie looked up and let out an excited, “Mommy!” and ran towards Susan. 

But, as the two-year-old either forgot to let go of Kerry’s hand or simply chose not to, Kerry came along with her. 

Susan greeted them both with kisses before scooping Charlie up into her arms. 

“How was your day?”

“Alright,” Susan replied. “I talked to Elizabeth.”

“Yeah? What did she say?”

“We… We talked and…” Susan inhaled deeply. “Everything’s fine.”

“Except everything is  _ no _ t fine,” Kerry pointed out. 

Susan almost rolled her eyes, but didn’t quite have the energy for it.

“Except everything is not fine,” Susan confirmed.

Charlie babbled something incoherent and then pointed to the floor, indicating she wanted down. Susan obliged and then watched as she ran off to find a toy to either play with, show her, or throw across the room for no reason whatsoever.

Susan watched as Charlie sat down on the living room floor and started trying to balance a doll on a stack of blocks. But as entertained as she was by Charlie’s repeated attempts to put a block on  _ top _ of the doll, only for it to fall off and for her to repeat it, the longer she watched, the more she felt that anguish seep further into her, dragging her heart to the floor.

Mark was never going to see Ella at this age. He was never going to see things like dance recitals or a band concerts for her, and he’d missed so many chances to do that for Rachel. All those things she took for granted, he’d never get.

Kerry laid a hand on Susan’s arm. Susan turned to look at her, the depth of her sorrow as evident in the tears of her eyes as it was in her chest. 

But when she spoke, that depth was absent from her words, for no matter how much air or effort she put behind them, they could only barely get past the trembling of her lips. 

“Mark is going to die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're reaching the end of season eight, folks. We all know what happens now. 
> 
> I wanted to approach this chapter in a different way than the others, not just to show the conversations between Susan and Elizabeth as they unfolded, but also to highlight how the time passed. That's what happens in the time of crisis - you can only take things one day at a time. Without dialogue tags, it also challenged me to really think about how characters talked and how they use words and names, especially in the few days where it isn't Susan that Elizabeth is talking to. I included names for all of those instances, but I hoped that at least a few of them were in character/situation enough that you could have guessed it even without using their name.
> 
> I have a lot of complaints about how _ER_ handles interpersonal relationships, but perhaps my biggest complaint is that Susan and Elizabeth didn't have the chance to become better friends. Because of the Susan-and-Mark-almost-happened-but-not-quite, they made Susan the "other woman." They become friends later on after Mark dies, but it's likely never as close as it would be without that setup. Personally, I think Susan and Elizabeth would have been very good friends, and, in this scenario, Elizabeth really needed a good friend. Lizzie tends to shut down a bit and get angry when faced with her heartache, and Susan is very patient, but can explode a bit when pushed too hard during an emotional time (ie snapping at Kerry in S2 that she'd never want to be the Chief Resident). But one thing I hope never to do as a writer is set up an argument like this and then not get some kind of closure and comfort. And, during the events of this time in the show, there needs to be as much comfort as possible. 
> 
> You may have noticed that I added the chapter count up at the top. We're in the final stretch of this story, but there's still a lot to come. And some things, like those in the next few chapters, are going to hit a _lot_ different here in the year 2020. 
> 
> I hope you're well and still enjoying this. I'm excited about things to come, both happy and sad. Until next time.


	41. Orion in the Sky

Once Elizabeth was informed that Mark’s cancer had returned, the secret was not a secret anymore. And though all those versed in the ways of science and medicine figured it was only a matter of months, weeks, or even days before the cancer had its way with him, cancer was no more predictable than any other part of life and death, meaning every day was both a given and not a given at all. 

Not to say that things didn’t change. 

It wasn’t long before Mark stopped participating in traumas. He never said anything about it, but rather just stepped back whenever the Ambulance Bay doors burst open, trusting the others would take care of it. 

Kerry began taking on more shifts downstairs. Again, it wasn’t something anyone asked her to do, but rather intuition that they’d need more help as one of their Attending grew further beyond help with each passing day. 

Carmen also became a regular fixture in the ER again. Though she joked that it was in the hope that her visits would coincide with someone paging her girlfriend down from Psych (a joke Lucy took so well some started to think it might not be a joke at all), the underlying truth was that she was the Director of Employee Assistance and Debriefing and her presence was in expectation that all the ER employees were going to her services very soon.

But what changed more than anything was the solemnity that settled over the ER staff in those passing weeks. 

Their role in the lives and deaths of their patients always weighed heavily on them, which easily lent itself to secondary trauma and mental and emotional stress. But, both through the resources at their disposal and the fraternity that came with shared experience, they always managed to make the best of it. Sure, there were breakdowns or arguments from time to time, but at the end of the day, they didn’t have anyone else who understood what they went through every day. 

Mark’s mortality changed that, though. Suddenly, death was real and it was happening to them collectively, in real time, and they couldn’t do anything about it. And that reality, the sudden closeness of death instead of their carefully curated distance from it, took all of their meaningless chats, jokes, and joy away. 

The obvious problem with that was the simple truth that if you cannot find light in the darkness, if the gravity pulls too hard that levity cannot be possible, you are only strengthening the hold that heaviness has over you. And while it is at times impossible to see or do anything about this, the same opportunities often still arise and therefore can be taken advantage of. 

Susan spotted one of these opportunities late one night in the ER when the Chief of Staff, downstairs again after a brief foray upstairs for a meeting. 

“Um, excuse me,” Susan said, holding up a hand to stop Kerry from stepping behind the desk. “No unauthorized personnel behind the desk.”

Kerry glanced at her over the rim of her glasses. 

“Excuse me?”

“All County employees must have their ID badge visible at all times.” Susan motioned up and down. “I don’t see a badge anywhere on your person.”

“I forgot it upstairs.”

“A likely story,” Susan said with narrowed eyes. 

“I’m sure we can make an exception just this once,” Kerry said flatly before trying to push forward once again. 

Susan sucked in air, grimacing. 

“Mmmm, I don’t think so.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules, but I know the person who  _ does _ and, frankly, they wouldn’t be too happy if I made an exception for you. Because first I make one for you, then I’ll be making one for everybody.”

Kerry rolled her eyes. 

“Are you really going to make me go all the way back upstairs to get my damn badge instead of letting me help you all out?”

Susna considered the question for a moment. 

“Well, I guess if you could produce a copy of the ER strategic plan with all Attendings  _ must _ have on their person at all times while on shift, I could make an exception.”

The look of exasperation Susan had earned so far was just made worse at this. 

“Are you having fun?”

“Yes, I am.”

Kerry made to either try to step around her or to tell her off (maybe playfully, maybe not) when the Ambulance Bay doors flew open and the paramedics came in with a man on a gurney. 

“On second thought, we can let it slide just this once,” Susan said before pointing towards the incoming trauma. “That’s for you.”

Kerry let out an irritated sigh, but nevertheless turned for the trauma. Susan gave her a pleasant smile and then turned for the lounge. She was leaning against the counter, relishing her freshly poured cup of (what passed for) coffee and the peeved look on her wife’s face a moment before when the door opened and Mark stepped in.

“Were you banished?” he asked as he started for his locker. “I heard you teasing Kerry a second ago.”

“Well, I’m the only one who can do it and not get fired, which is not a responsibility I take lightly,” Susan said with a shrug. “You headed out for the night?”

“Yep.” Mark closed his locker. “Gonna go home and hug my girls.”

“There’s nothing better.”

Mark turned, smiling. Then, he nodded to the door. 

“Walk with me?”

Susan let out another shrug and then followed Mark out into the Ambulance Bay. 

The ambulance that had brought in the trauma a few minutes ago had already left. Hopefully not to another trauma seeing as Kerry was supposed to head out soon to relieve the babysitter in a few minutes, and getting swept into another one, even  _ without _ Susan’s instigation, would surely not bode well for her.

“Wow,” Susan said in awe as she looked up at the night sky. “It’s so  _ clear.” _

Mark glanced up. It had been a long time since he’d seen a night this clear in the city, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the clouds and light pollution that usually obscured the view had lessened due to the decision he’d made just a few minutes before. 

“Michael’s probably taking the girls outside to look at them with his telescope,” Susan remarked, unable to tear her eyes away from the stars.

“Are they into space?” 

“Not particularly,” Susan admitted. “But how could you not be on a night like this?”

Mark gave a shrug of acknowledgement as he too continued to gape at the beauty of the universe. 

“He told me he got it when he was about Suzie’s age. But his birthday’s in December, so he couldn’t use it right away. Because, you know, you really shouldn’t go out at night in December in  _ Minnesota. _ He said he’d thought he’d have to wait to try it out until spring or summer, but he ended up using it for the first time a couple weeks later when he learned his grandmother Annalise had died.”

“His grandmother Annalise?” Mark asked, lowering his face to look at her. 

“Yep,” Susan said with a small smile. She looked at Mark. “Michael’s mother’s family is from France. They fled to the US during World War II. Apparently, her name was  _ actually _ Anna Elise, but sometime in her childhood, it morphed into ‘Annalise.’ Not exactly how we pronounce it, but still.”

Mark chuckled at the difference between the ‘ahn’ of (grandmother) ‘Annalise’ and the ‘an’ of (eleven-year-old) ‘Annalise.’ Susan did too for a brief moment before her attention was drawn back to the sky. 

“He said she had taught him this poem by a Jewish poet who wrote during the war,” Susan continued. “The poem was about stars. Something about how stars that twinkled were people who had died, lighting the way for others. And Michael said he remembered that poem and wanted to take his telescope out to see if he could see her twinkling at him.”

“Did he?” Mark asked as he too glanced skyward once more.

“He said that he had only gotten it set up for a minute or two before his mom caught him and made him come back inside,” Susan explained with a small chuckle before exhaling. “But he said he liked to think he did.”

Mark looked back down at her. Susan continued to look up for a second and then, noticing his looking at her, looked back down at him. 

“Do you remember the first thing I told you after you got promoted to Attending?”

Susan thought for a second. 

“‘I’m expecting you to do well, because if you don’t, people are going to think this is nepotism?’”

“I think that was Kerry.”

_ “Oh, _ right, right,” Susan said, nodding. “You said something about ‘the ward looking to me?’”

“That you set the tone,” Mark said with an air of finality. “I thought that then and I think that now. More than ever.”

Susan nodded again as she remembered that day he pulled her aside before she stepped out of the lounge. But, then, she let out a small sigh. 

“I think there’s a lot of other people that the ward would look to before they look to me,” she remarked quietly. “But thanks.”

A small smile just crept onto Mark’s face.

“You’d be surprised.”

Susan narrowed her eyes slightly as if willing him to elaborate, but he didn’t. He just let his smile grow into a broad grin.Then, he sighed. 

“I should get going,” he said. “Want to get home before Rachel goes to bed.”

“Okay,” Susan said, crossing her arms against her as a late-spring wind blew off the lake. “I’ll see you later.”

Mark paused like he was going to say something, but then he just nodded. 

“Yeah. See you later.”

She watched him walk to the street. He paused again once he reached the sidewalk and then turned back. He waved his hand to wave at her, which she returned, before he turned down the sidewalk towards the El station. 

Susan waited for days to see him at work, but it was clear after a week passed and she found Kerry covering yet another of Mark’s shifts that she was not going to see him later. 

And she wouldn’t. Not until Elizabeth faxed the ER two letters - one from him and one from her - with the latter informing them all that Mark was gone. 

She, Rachel, and Ella flew back to Chicago from Hawai’i a few days later. They brought Mark’s body with them so they could inter him in a cemetery near their house. 

The hardest part of a funeral for an ER physician is that not all of their colleagues would be able to attend, regardless of when it was held. And, when they arrived for the small graveside service that Elizabeth had arranged, Susan felt a small flame of anger flicker in her heart at the absence of certain of their co-workers before this fact occurred to her. 

Kerry was not very stable on grass, so Susan had her sit down on one of the chairs set out for mourners. An older gentleman offered his chair to Annie, but she declined, choosing instead to stand behind Kerry alongside Susan and Suzie. 

Susan’s breath caught in her throat several times as it was, but at one moment, she glanced at the girls out of the side of her eye and saw them quietly holding hands. Add to that the grave black of their clothing and the fact that Annie had chosen to use Kerry’s old crutches in place of her pink ones because they were, as she said, “not right for a funeral,” and Susan had to squeeze her fists tight to keep herself from losing it. 

(It didn’t help that, when the service ended and she made to comfort Elizabeth, she saw Annie step aside to comfort Rachel.)

There was a small wake after the service, but Elizabeth was a bit overwhelmed (both with grief and with Ella) and ducked out early on. Susan didn’t really want to stay without her, so she, Kerry, and the girls headed home. 

Annie and Suzie changed out of their funeral clothes quickly upon returning home and almost immediately got back to whatever they were doing before they were left. Kerry became distracted with Charlie, leaving Susan to retire to their room without consequence. 

She hadn’t really meant to fall asleep, but she awoke to the sound of Kerry telling Suzie that it was time for bed. She offered to tuck Suzie in, which Suzie happily accepted, but once she turned out the light and pulled the door shut, Susan was overwhelmed with the feeling that she was being suffocated and the only thing that would help was to go outside. 

The downstairs was empty as Susan slid the sliding glass door open and stepped out onto the deck. 

She inhaled deeply as she took a seat on the patio loveseat. And, for a while, she just sat there, listening to the sound of the night and regretting her choice not to light the citronella candles as she slapped at the mosquitoes that insisted on sucking her blood. 

It wasn’t long before the candles seemed to light themselves, casting yellow circles of light over different parts of the deck. But they did not light themselves. It was merely Kerry, who had come out with a book of matches when she’d heard the muttered curses at the bloodsucking insects.

“I can’t see the stars tonight,” Susan said quietly as Kerry settled on the seat next to her. “I’ve been looking for them, but I can’t see them.”

Kerry looked up at the sky, and, sure enough, clouds blocked the view of the night. 

“What do we do now?” 

Kerry looked down at her. Susan was backlit by the candles, her blonde hair glowing gold as it fell around her face. 

“I think we have to figure out what normal looks like now.”

Susan pulled her gaze away from the stars above only to see them reflected in Kerry’s eyes. 

She thought back to the disagreement they’d had in the lounge after Mildred died. How Kerry was so convinced there could never be normal again because of the hole in her life left behind by the death of her mother. 

And yet, against all of that, there  _ was _ a normal again. Since then, there’d been a new job and a new baby and a new house. They continued to learn and grow and love. That even despite that loss, good things could continue to happen, and that some of those things would never have happened if not for the hole left behind. 

But even as she thought of all of this, Susan understood Kerry’s frustration back then. 

She didn’t  _ want _ to imagine a new normal. She didn’t  _ care _ what it looked like. She didn’t  _ care _ that good things would come again and that some could be better than she’d ever thought. She  _ couldn’t _ think of any of that because she was too close to falling off the edge of the hole where Mark Greene used to be. 

But where Kerry had spent the rest of that afternoon in a meeting with Anspaugh and then broke down upon getting home, leaving Susan to find her curled up on Mildred’s bed a few hours later, Susan skipped all of that. She just collapsed forward into Kerry’s lap as the sobs overtook her and felt Kerry’s arms wrap around her to hold her as she wept. 

Susan cried until she couldn’t cry any longer. Kerry said nothing, but just rubbed her back until Susan finally made to stand up. 

Kerry offered Susan a hand as she opened the door. Susan took it and allowed herself to be led into the house. But the moment she stepped over the threshold, she stopped and glanced back up. 

The clouds moved so fast that she could only see it for a brief moment before it disappeared, but right up above her, she could clearly see the three stars making up Orion’s belt twinkling at her from the heavens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem that Susan references is by Hannah Szenes, a Jewish poet from WWII. The poem is called _[Yesh Kohkavim,](https://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/yesh-kokhavim-there-are-stars)_[or "There Are Stars."](https://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/yesh-kokhavim-there-are-stars) I learned of it just a few days ago and I felt like it fit so perfectly into this chapter. 
> 
> I meant to mention this in the notes of the last chapter, but the next couple chapters may or may not be updated on my normal timeline as, though I'm off on vacation this week, I'm off to move house. Also, I'm debating posting the next two chapters in tandem as they will be based off a two-part episode that really all flows together as one.
> 
> Sidenote: I started transcribing some of the dialogue for the next chapter and, _hoo boy,_ I honestly don't know how much I'm going to be able to watch before it overwhelms me. I told me fiancé earlier that when I watched _ER_ for the first time last spring, the idea of a deadly airborne virus potentially causing a pandemic seemed a bit like the show jumped the shark. However, 2020 has shown me the error of my thinking, and has also shown that there was one key thing that the two-parter didn't _quite_ portray realistically. But, of course, we didn't quite know that until now. I don't want to give anything away, but, uh... Let's just say that I've read a lot about how healthcare workers, and specifically ER doctors, are processing and responding to the pandemic and I'm going to add a layer to the next two chapters that is based off of those accounts. Prepare to be deeply concerned with how much of the canon dialogue sounds like news reports. 
> 
> It may be a few days or even a week before I get the next chapter(s) posted. Hope you all are doing and staying well until then. Until next time :)


	42. Lockdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: The content of this chapter may be triggerings due to the stress of current events. (Dated July 20, 2020)

Though the ER staff felt the loss of one of their senior Attendings profoundly in the weeks (and months and years) following Mark’s death, the city of Chicago did not seem to care. 

It continued to play host to gunshot wounds and motor vehicle accidents, broken bones and cardiac arrests. The entropy of illness and injury never ceased, which meant that Susan was forced back into the mess and mayhem sooner than she would have liked.

She tried not to think about it too much as May turned to June turned to July. She just focused on the injuries from playing with fireworks and the gastroenteritis caused by undercooked bratwurst and the concussions from summer sports leagues. So long as she paid attention solely to the patients and not to the initials missing from the board or the surgeon who had left a letter on Kerry’s desk with just the words “I resign” or the deep-seated sorrow over the permanent absence of her best friend, then she would be fine. 

Today would be fine, she thought as she stood in front of her locker in the lounge. Today would be just the same as the others. She’d see patients and then she’d go home and cook the girls dinner while Annie filled them all in on her experience at camp this week.

But, despite her highest hopes and ardent assertions, today would  _ not _ be fine. She was quite sure of that the moment a panicked Carter pulled her away from getting a central line kit to show him the two kids he’d just rushed into the Suture Room.

“I think I’ve got two cases of smallpox.”

If it wasn’t for the seriousness of his tone, Susan would have laughed. But instead, she just peered through the window. 

He’d put masks on both kids, but even with half of their faces covered, she could still make out the clear characteristic rashes on both of their faces.

“Oh my God.”

“Firm, deep-seated pustules. All in the same stage of development,” Carter half-stated, half-read from the poster in his hand. 

“No… It’s probably just a bad case of chickenpox,” she said before she could stop herself. 

But even from a distance, her years of ER experience and close personal experience with the malady thanks to a bout with it a few years ago gifted to her by her school-age children, she knew they didn’t look like  _ that. _

“No,” Carter said, shaking his head. “Centrifugal distribution sparing the trunk. It’s all the major criteria.”

“We haven’t had a case here since the  _ forties,” _ Susan said as she stared in disbelief at the kids inside the room. 

“It’s airborne,” Carter said in a voice just short of horror. “We have to lock this place down.”

Susan’s gut instinct was to protest. Smallpox was like polio. It had been wiped out. _ Decades _ had passed since a naturally occurring strain of the virus had been seen anywhere, let alone in the United States. 

But right beside her skepticism was the trust she had that Carter would not make something like this up. He wasn’t prone to exaggeration or went looking for zebras instead of horses. And it was this trust in his care and consideration of his patients that led her to strip off her trauma gown and go looking for the emergency response plan.

She began to look through it as Carter phoned upstairs. 

“Okay,” he announced as he replaced the receiver. “Elevator lobby, north stairwell, and south corridor are all secure.”

“Security’s trying to lock the Ambulance Bay doors,” Jerry said, nodding towards the entrance.

“Isn’t that a fire safety hazard?” Chen asked, frowning in concern. 

Next to her, Abby hung up the phone she’d been on. 

“Okay. We’re closed to trauma.”

Carter nodded and then looked at Susan. 

“Is public health on their way?”

“Do I call the city, the county, or the state department?” Susan asked, frowning as she flipped back and forth in the binder.

“Check the emergency response plan,” Carter replied, glancing over her shoulder. 

“This  _ is  _ the emergency response plan.”

Susan pointed to the line on the page in front of her which just read,  _ “Contact local health authority,” _ and then proceeded to list all three departments and a contact number to the CDC. 

“I don’t know,” Carter said with a shrug. “Call all three.”

“Hey, hold on,” Luka said from the other side of the desk. “You think maybe you’re jumping to conclusions?”

“You ever seen smallpox before?” Carter said, turning on him.

“No, but that’s my point,” Luka replied, holding his ground. “It could be anything. Scabies, pityriasis, chicken pox-”

“This is  _ not _ chicken pox,” Carter told him firmly. 

“- Herpes, impetigo,” Luka continued, ignoring the interruption. “Are you one hundred percent certain?”

“You wanna risk exposure to the city?”

At the implications of the question, a few staff at the desk who had only been half-listening so far sat up straighter. 

“Whoa,” Malik said. “How bad is it?”

“Killed half of Europe,” Carter informed him with another shrug. 

“Yeah, but they have a vaccine for it now,” Gallant chimed in. “The CDC should have a stockpile of it.”

“In Chicago?” Malik asked, his brow furrowing.

“In Atlanta,” Carter answered. 

“Oh  _ great.” _

Malik picked up the chart he was working on and turned away for the other end of the desk.

“No, Luka’s right,” Chen said, stepping forward. “Smallpox has been eradicated.”

“I heard Russians had some on ice,” Jerry informed them. “If a terrorist group got ahold of it-”

“Shut up, Jerry.”

Jerry raised his hands defensively, but he’d said his part. 

_ “Damn,” _ Malik said as he set down a stack of charts on the counter next to Susan. “I should have called in sick today.”

Susan thanked the person on the other end of the line and then hung the phone up. 

“What’d they say?” Carter asked, turning his attention back to her. 

“Lock it down,” Susan said, shaking her head. “They’re on their way.”

“The entire hospital?” Abby asked. 

“The ER,” Susan replied. 

“What do we do about the critical patients?” Luka asked, looking at Carter. 

“You’re asking  _ me?” _ Carter asked, pointing at himself. 

Before Luka could reply, Chen looked up from one of the charts.

“The infected kids, they’re brother and sister?” At Susan’s affirmation, Chen further clarified, “Five and ten?”

At the concern in her tone, Susan looked at her. 

“Yeah. Why?”

“I think I treated them when I was covering in the Pedes Trauma Center last Tuesday. They presented with the flu,” Chen said, panic rising in her voice. “I have a fever.”

A dozen half-formed questions immediately popped into Susan’s head. 

Why the  _ hell _ would she come into work at a hospital with a fever? Had anyone thought to lock down the Pedes Trauma Center? Why hadn’t the family gone over there instead of coming over to this side, which was often busier, louder, and all together more frustrating than the other side?

“Well,” Carter said slowly. “You need to be quarantined.”

“Oh God,” Chen moaned, raising a hand to her forehead. 

“Hey, come on. Slow down,” Luka insisted.

“No, no, no,” Carter said, holding up a hand to Luka as he turned for Susan. “Susan’s you gotta come up with a plan, like,  _ now.” _

Again, Susan’s gut instinct was to protest. She felt like the last person who should be responsible for something like that. But given that their ER Chief Tonya had left for the day and couldn’t be called back, that left her as the most senior Attending on duty. 

“Okay, okay.” Susan closed her eyes for a brief moment and inhaled deeply. “Deb, Carter’s right. You’re quarantined to Exam Four. Jerry, pull the staff schedules and patient logs for us and the for the PTC and start ID’ing anyone who crossed over. Luka, reassess all the patients, group the criticals. I’ll take care of public health.”

Though the looks on some of their faces indicated they didn’t agree with her instructions, everyone started in different directions, nonetheless. 

Susan took another deep breath before trying to remember all she could about the signs and symptoms of the variola virus before giving in and consulting  _ Harrison’s. _

“Should we page Kerry down before we lock the doors?” Carter asked, frowning.

Susan shook her head. 

“She’s off today. Annie’s been at Jewish sleepaway camp all week in Wisconsin. Kerry went up to get her this morning. ” Susan looked at Carter and sighed. “It’s two hours both ways.”

“Gotcha. Might be worth calling her anyway,” he suggested. “To at least keep her in the loop.” 

Susan nodded. 

“I’ll call her once I get off the phone with the CDC.”

The order of her phone calls proved to be a poor choice, though, as she ended up on hold with the Centers for Disease Control for over forty-five minutes before she finally got through to a real person. By the time she got off the phone with them an hour and a half after placing the call, her success at having arranged for a CDC staff member specializing in Infectious Disease to fly in and several boxes worth of smallpox vaccine to be shipped out from the CDC headquarters, she felt the stress setting in.

Susan stopped a moment to breathe before dialing Kerry’s cell number. It rang for a few seconds before someone picked it up.

“Hi, Mommy!” Annie greeted.

“Hi, Annie, honey,” Susan said, the sound of her daughter’s voice calming her in a way she hadn’t expected. “Annie, can you tell me where you are?”

“Uh… Wisconsin?”

“Yes, but  _ where?” _ Susan pressed. “Look out the window and tell me what the sign says.”

There was a pause as Annie followed her direction.

“‘Now leaving Wisconsin?’” Annie answered confusedly, before perking up. “Mommy, I want to tell you about camp-”

“And I promise I want to hear all about camp, honey,” Susan said, cutting her off, “but this is kind of an emergency. I need to talk to Momma.”

Annnie was a bit put out (naturally), but nevertheless held the cell phone out to Kerry. 

“She says it’s an emergency,” Annie informed her with a shrug. 

Kerry took the phone from her and held it up to her ear.

“Susan?”

“Are you vaccinated against smallpox?”

Kerry frowned for a moment. 

“Yes,” she replied slowly. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I’ll… I’ll explain when you get here. Right now, I just need you to call Michael and Adam and see if they can take all three girls tonight or-or if they’d be willing to come over to our house tonight.”

“But why?” Kerry asked, before quickly adding, “Not that I won't, but why? And what does my being vaccinated against smallpox have anything to do with it?”

She could hear Susan exhale deeply on the other end of the call.

“Two kids came in today with what appears to be smallpox,” she informed Kerry quietly. “For some reason, they came in  _ here _ instead of going next door and they sat there for a while before anyone saw them. We’ve… We’ve got the ER on lockdown.”

It was a good thing that Kerry had set the cruise control on the minivan as they drove down I-94, as otherwise, she’d have instinctively stepped harder on the gas.

“That’s… But that’s not possible,” she responded automatically. “Smallpox was-”

“Eradicated,” Susan finished. “Yeah, we know. But the patients are the kids of a US national. They’d been visiting Central Africa on one of the dad’s business trips. They think they could have contracted it there.”

Kerry gulped. Like Susan’s trust in Carter, she had the same trust in Susan. If she thought this could really be what it was, then Kerry believed her.

“I’ll call Michael as soon as I get off the phone with you,” Kerry stated. “I’ll be there as soon as the girls are settled.”

Susan muttered a word of thanks before she and Kerry exchanged “I love yous” and hung up. 

Susan took a deep breath before stepping out of the scrubs closet where she’d holed herself up to make her phone calls away from the rising volume of the rest of the ER, but it did little to prepare her for what lay outside her little bubble of solitude and polyester-cotton blends. 

“One of the signs of the virus is fever, right?” Gallant asked Luka as Susan returned to the desk. “So, we just monitor everyone’s temperatures and then triage anyone whose temperature is too high.”

“If we try to monitor their temperatures, we’re going to cause mass panic,” Luka said, rolling his eyes.

“Well, it’s either panic or pandemic,” Gallant offered. “I say we try and mitigate the spread that way.”

Nearby, some of those who had been waiting in chairs heard Gallant’s suggestion.

“Hey, they want to take our temperatures,” a big burly man said, pointing towards the desk. “I told you something was wrong. They won’t tell us what it is, but they want to test us for it.”

“Yeah, probably taking it rectally, too,” another man chimed in.”

“I do  _ not _ consent to someone sticking a thermometer in my ass,” a woman nearby said in an alarmed voice. “I won’t even let my  _ husband _ stick anything in there.”

Susan dragged her hands down her face. But before she could question whether or not that was a good thing to do with a deadly virus potentially lurking in the air and on nearby surfaces, a group of patients started for the Ambulance Bay doors. 

Immediately - and without adequate forethought - she ran around the group, putting herself between the doors and the mob, which was getting rowdier by the minute. 

“Get out of the way, lady,” the first man shouted.

“You can’t leave,” Susan said loudly, raising her hands to hold the crowd back. 

“Why not?”

From her place near the door, Susan didn’t have the opportunity to make eye contact with any of the other doctors to judge whether what she was about to say was a good idea or not, but she didn’t have much of a choice not to. She just took a steeling breath. 

“You all have been exposed to an unknown pathogen,” she said in as clear a voice as she could manage. “We are working with state and local health authorities to figure out what it is and how to best protect you against it, but they have said that, in the meantime, you all must stay here.”

“But I have kids to get home to,” a woman near the front said in an anxious voice. 

“And I’m due at work in twenty minutes,” a man next to her piped up. 

“And I just don’t want to be here!” another man called out. 

“I understand that,” Susan reassured the group. “We will provide doctor’s excuses for all employers and there are telephones available if you need to call bosses, babysitters, or family-”

“To tell them we’re going to die?” another panicked woman shouted. 

“To tell them you’re going to be home late,” Susan stated, doing her best not to grit her teeth. “I promise. If we all remain calm and work together, we’ll get out of here as soon as possible. But the longer we argue and try to leave, the longer everyone will be stuck here.”

There was a barrage of angry shouts and “I’m not working with  _ thems,” _ before a loud, high-pitched shriek made them all double over in pain, covering their ears. 

Once the shriek stopped, everyone gathered slowly stood up. They glanced at one another before looking up at Carter, who had climbed up on the counter and squealed the bullhorn into the loudspeaker.

“Now, listen,” Carter announced his place above them. “We know you’re upset, but Dr. Lewis is right: We all have to work together, which means no one can leave. If you try to, the police are waiting for you on the other side to arrest you and drag you right back in here. So, if you don’t want to be even  _ later _ home tonight because you’ve gotta go down to the station, I recommend you sit down and shut up.”

It only took the group a quick glance out the windows to see the flashing red-and-blue lights, not of ambulances, but of cop cars. This was apparently enough of a deterrent for most of them, who ambled back to their chairs or beds, muttering to themselves. 

Susan leaned back against the doors and took a deep breath, before making her way back to the desk. 

Once the situation was handled, Carter jumped down off the counter to join Abby back in the Suture Room with the kids. This time, though, he donned full PPE like Abby had, complete with a N95 Respirator Mask, goggles, and gowns from head to toe.

What if this thing got out? Susan wondered. Would they have enough of those for all the physicians? Infectious Disease typically kept a tight grip on the N95s. Would Kerry be able to get them to give some up if faced with swarms of sick people? 

She wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, but sometimes the little voice in her head sounded like Kerry or even sometimes  _ Mildred. _ It always seemed to happen in the moments where she needed the most grounding, and they were two of the most grounded women she’d ever met. (Most of the time.)

It was hard to make out her thoughts over the din of the patients, but she knew what the reassurances likely were - keep your head on straight, don’t overthink this, just keep going. 

Susan almost laughed at the idea of Kerry Weaver encouraging her not to overthink things, and yet, the idea was still rather comforting. And, when Kerry phoned the ER an hour later to tell her that she was outside and that the police (and eventually the CDC) refused her entry, even when she flashed her badge that read  _ Chief of Staff,  _ it was exactly what she told Susan when Susan began to express her fears. 

“It’s… It’s going to be okay,” Kerry had said, though it was clear that she wasn’t sure if she believed her own words. “Just… Just keep everyone inside and… and don’t think about that.”

And by ‘that,’ she was referring to Susan’s voiced concerns that they weren’t protected anymore than the patients. They’d stopped vaccinating children for it by the time Susan was born, so she couldn’t even rely on that to get her through. 

But the thoughts didn’t go away. Even with Kerry’s reassurances that she’d be okay and that she was loved and she’d see her on the other side of this, Susan couldn’t help the way the feeling that she had to force air out to alert the CDC that they had their first casualty as Carter called time of death on the little girl with the rash. 

And those thoughts  _ certainly _ didn’t increase in strength the moment Carter climbed back up on the counter later. Out beyond the windows, night had fallen.

He cleared his throat into the receiver to get everyone’s attention. 

“Earlier, a little five-year-old girl came in here with a rash that looked like smallpox,” he announced to all those stuck in the ER. “She died quickly. Her older brother is still critical.”

Those around looked at each other guiltily. Perhaps they’d acted differently if they’d known the sick patients were  _ kids. _ (Practical experience, however, says this is not true.)

Carter heaved a sigh.

“We don't know what it is,” he continued, “and we don't know how they got it. But it's here, and it needs to be contained.

“This is not about denying your civil rights. This is about protecting you. If we let you go, you could carry the disease home to your own families. 

“So, please, stay here. Help us… and we'll all get through this.”

And, in that moment, Susan believed him. 

They would all get through this. It would be hard, but they’d get through this. She might not cook dinner and hear about Annie’s time at camp  _ tonight, _ but she would in the morning. She’d cook breakfast instead.

But then she learned that Pratt and a patient had already joined Chen in quarantine in Exam Four and Abby and Carter were now in forced quarantine, too.

And, suddenly, Susan wasn’t sure of anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I almost cry while watching clips of this episode/ reading episode transcripts? Yes. Does the canon dialogue, found both at the beginning scene at the desk and at the end in Carter's speech to the gathered crowd, sound _exactly_ like has been said over and over again across the world over the last several months? Yes. Are this and the next chapter essentially using the smallpox virus as a stand-in and or metaphor for the novel Coronavirus? No. But, also, yes. 
> 
> I put a trigger warning on this chapter and will do so on the next one. That's not normally something I do except in certain circumstances in which the subject matter is not something that is otherwise a theme of the work (ie grief) and is likely to trigger somebody (like mention of certain mental health issues or the use of certain words). In this case, I would not be surprised if quarantine, virus, mask, and a variety of other words are triggering right now. We take to fiction most time to escape our current circumstances and live in another reality. These chapters are much too close for reality. 
> 
> This chapter was a little bit more emotionally draining than I expected, which is surpising compared to the chapters I actually cried while writing, but I think it's understandable as to why. I'm still defeinitely going to cover the events of the next episode, but likely not adhere so close to canon to do it. I prefer to transcribe and use chunks of canon dialogue for key scenes when I write fanfiction, but these two episodes are just really, really hard to watch and/or read transcriptions of. I hope you understand. 
> 
> Until next time.


	43. Chaos Theory

Darkness had fallen outside by the time any of the ER staff were allowed outside. The flashing lights of ambulances waiting to transfer patients to other hospitals and the lights of the helicopters flying around did not make that fact immediately clear. 

Susan pushed a wheelchair with one of the last patients to be transferred into the Ambulance Bay and parked it behind one of the ambulances. She couldn’t be sure that this was because she intended the patient to go with the paramedics of this particular right or rather that she’d followed the sound of a familiar voice yelling directions and orders (and also just yelling a bit in general).

The sight of Kerry immediately filled Susan with immense relief, which was made even greater the moment she threw her arms around the Chief of Staff. She naturally expected Kerry to try and shrug out of it for the sake of continuing to evacuate the patients, but she didn’t, as the hug filled her with immense relief just the same. 

“Sorry,” Susan muttered the moment she pulled out of the hug. “I just… I had to.”

Kerry nodded, wiping the tears that relief had sprung forth. (Managing crisis was one of the things Kerry prided herself on, but time and emotional proximity to others had made it harder and harder not to find her own emotions caught up with her just a bit too quickly for comfort the moment she let herself breathe.)

“How are you doing out here?” Susan asked, inhaling deeply. 

“Good,” Kerry replied as she pulled herself back to reality. “Third and fourth floors are empty. ICU and OR should be cleared in the next ten minutes.”

Susan nodded. 

“We did a really good job today,” she said as she glanced around. “I mean, given the situation, it could have been a disaster. But I think everyone handled it really well.”

Kerry smiled. 

“You kicked ass.”

Susan grinned for a moment before the force of things still to do drove her back into the ER. Knowing Kerry didn’t say things like that if she didn’t believe them certainly helped keep her morale up.

Gallant was on vaccine duty, which was revealing both how many people had fears of needles (regardless of whether they had visible tattoos or not) as well as just how many people were willing to sacrifice the health of others if it meant that they didn’t have to wait patiently in line. Susan got one man back into line by threatening to let the army sergeant outside come in and do it, but the moment of triumph was short-lived when she saw Abby giving Carter the vaccine through the window of the room they were quarantined in.

“Make sure you don’t touch that,” she warned them through the phone speaker system.

Abby and Carter both looked up at her before the sound of rolling gurney in the next room caught their attention.

The parents of the infected children now had masks on and were watching as staff in gowns prepared to move the son out of the room.

“Where are they taking them?” Carter asked, nodding towards the other room.

“Upstairs,” Susan replied. “Respiratory isolation.”

“And why do we have to stay in this petri dish?” Abby asked as she put a piece of gauze over the site of the vaccination.

“‘Prolonged exposure.’ Whatever that means,” Susan said, rolling her eyes. 

“Did you find out for how long?”

Susan paused for the briefest of seconds. 

“The virus is an unknown player.”

“You said it was monkeypox,” Abby said, frowning. 

“A  _ variant _ of the monkeypox,” Susan clarified. “That’s the problem.”

“How long?” Carter pressed. 

Susan sighed. 

“Two weeks.”

Both Carter and Abby protested, but there was nothing to be done. Smallpox had an incubation period of seven to seventeen days. And though this meant that technically two weeks wasn’t long enough of a quarantine, the more pressing matter was that, unlike Susan, they didn’t get to go home at the end of the night. 

But, like her moment with Kerry, there was no time to linger over this. She had more patients to evacuate before she got shut in with the rest of them. 

Soon, she and Kovac were pushing an MVA patient with a pelvic fracture out of the elevator on the roof. But just as the chopper prepared to land, Robert Romano came out of the elevator behind them with a patient of their own. 

“Don’t even think about it,” he shouted, “that’s my chopper.”

“They said they were sending a chopper for  _ two _ patients,” Susan shouted in reply. 

“Well, they lied,” Romano shouted back. 

“Hey, no!” the patient on the gurney in front of them cried out. “I don’t want to go on this helicopter!”

“Fine, fair enough,” Romano said loudly before continuing on towards the chopper.

“He needs an ICU bed,” Susan shouted after him.

“So, get him one,” Romano called out (unhelpfully).

“He has bilateral pulmonary contusions and they're starting to bruise,” Kovac chimed in, he too yelling so his voice could carry over the sound of the chopper.

“And my boy Marty here is a 70-year-old diabetic with gram negative sepsis from cholecystitis,” Romano yelled back. 

What happened next happened in such quick succession that Susan barely had time to process it all. 

There was shouting. Light beamed down at them from a news helicopter. More shouting and then a sudden burst of red before Romano hit the ground, most of him in one place and the rest of him in another. 

Then, suddenly, Romano was on the gurney in front of them. They scrambled to get everything clamped off and then they were scrambling to find his arm. Then, she was putting the still-warm arm into a plastic Personal Belongings bag as the helicopter pilot shouted that they couldn’t fly without him checking on the tail rotor first.

There were more shouts and then Kovac and the others were moving patients, Romano now one of them, into the elevator. And then, suddenly… Susan was alone.

But before she could breathe, let alone  _ process _ what had just taken place in front of her, the monitor hooked to the patient Romano had been transporting started to beep. 

“Mr. Hersch? Mr. Hersch?” Susan called out to the man on the gurney. 

There was no response. 

She opened the med box at Mr. Hersch’s feet and shuffled through it until she found a vial of Levophed and a syringe. But as she drew the norepinephrine into the syringe and then went for the med bag, there were no IV bags left in it.

“Okay, Mr. Hersch,” she said, “I’ll be right back.”

The syringe still in her hand, she grabbed the med bag and ran for the stairs. She dropped the bag at the door to prop it open before running down the stairs as fast as she could. 

She barged through the door on the seventh floor and shouted for help, but there was no one there. She didn’t bother to try again and instead just started rifling through a nearby rack of supplies until she found an IV bag. Her hand was shaking so badly as she tried to insert it into the port that one wrong move with the needle and she’d have to start all over. 

Once it had been injected, she took off back up the stairs to the roof, where she was met with even more beeping from the monitor. 

She didn’t bother to hang the IV bag. She tossed it onto the crash cart and reached for the paddles instead, remembering to squirt jelly onto them a second before she flipped the switch to charge them.

Susan waited a moment for the defibrillator to beep before she placed the paddles on Mr. Hersch’s chest. She felt his body jerk underneath them, but it did nothing to stop the squealing of the monitor. 

She pressed the button to charge them again as the elevator dinged behind her. 

It was now or never, Susan thought as she put aside the paddles. Either she got him into the elevator and downstairs now or they were both shit outta luck. 

With all the strength her adrenaline could muster, Susan forced the gurney forward into the elevator. She jabbed first at the button for the first floor and then to the emergency call button. 

“Pick up,” she muttered into the phone receiver to her ear as she started compressions on Mr. Hersch. “Pick  _ up.” _

An entire hospital below her in the Ambulance Bay, Kerry waved Donald Anspuagh and a man she didn’t recognize towards the Ambulance Bay doors. 

“Kerry Weaver, Dr. Joe Gunn,” Anspaugh introduced as they moved forward. 

“Nice to meet you,” Kerry replied flatly.

“He walked into the tail rotor?” Anspaugh as they continued moving. “What the hell happened?”

Kerry couldn’t really shrug while moving, so she just shook her head.

“He barely has a pressure,” she informed them. 

“Is he in arrest?” Anspaugh asked in a voice just short of distress.

“No yet.”

Before they reached the door, a public health officer rushed forward towards them. She handed out surgical masks and instructed them to wear the masks at all times while in the building. 

But before Kerry could join them inside, Gallant called after her. 

“Dr. Weaver, dispatch relayed a call from elevator number four,” he told her as he drew even with her. “Dr. Lewis needs help. She has a crashing patient. She can’t get him off.”

“Well, who’s with her?” 

“No one.”

Kerry inhaled deeply and then told Gallant to go find her and make sure she was alright before she donned her mask and started for the trauma room where her Chief of Surgery was possibly bleeding out.

She had only planned on lingering long enough to tell them to get him into an ambulance to another hospital for emergency surgery, but was forced to stop when they asked her what she thought he’d want to do about the arm. Given that she did not feel at  _ all _ qualified to comment on what Robert Romano wanted to do at any given moment, she told them to reattach it before rushing off to find Gallant. 

Kerry met him halfway down the corridor. He didn’t say anything, but just pointed towards Elevator Four. 

Susan was sitting against the wall, her face shiny with sweat and tears. Kerry silenced the wailing monitor, filling the hallway with silence. 

“His chart says no pork or shellfish derivatives,” Susan said, glancing up at the man on the gurney. “We were going to transfer him to St. Rafe’s. Do you think they serve Kosher meals at a Catholic hospital? Not that it matters much now, but…”

Kerry didn’t reply. Susan continued to look at the man for a long moment before looking back up at Kerry.

“Is it done? Is it over?” she asked, her voice starting to break from the stress and exhaustion. “Can I go home now?”

“Yeah, come on,” Kerry held out a hand to her. “I’ll take you home.”

Susan inhaled deeply and then took Kerry’s offered hand. 

They said nothing as they walked hand in hand out of the hospital and to Kerry’s car parked across the street. Both expected that they’d talk, break down, or most likely some combination of both when they got home and relieved Michael and Adam of their emergency babysitting positions. 

Once upstairs, they skinned out of their blood and sweat covered clothes and sealed them in a plastic bag to be laundered later. They then took turns showering off the day and changed into fresh pajamas. But before either one could broach the subject, they both laid down to get more comfortable and immediately fell asleep. 

“Susan?” Kerry mumbled a few moments (or, rather, several hours) later. 

“Hmmm?”

“I think there are more people in this bed than there were when we fell asleep,” she said without opening her eyes. 

“What are you talking…” Susan groaned as she turned over towards Kerry and, upon opening her eyes, found not Kerry but Annie looking back at her. “...About.”

“Hello!” Annie greeted cheerfully, her braces glinting in the sunlight streaming from between the curtains as she smiled. 

“Where did you come from?” Susan said, blinking herself awake.

Annie paused for a second to think before simply answering, “Momma.”

“You guys slept in really late,” Suzie remarked, turning her head sideways towards Kerry.

Kerry lifted her head. 

She’d already figured out that Annie was lying on her left side next to Susan. Suzie, however, lay flat on her back in between Kerry and Annie. Charlie sat at the foot of the bed (which Kerry should have figured out as the toddler was poking at her feet). 

Kerry glanced at the clock on her bedside table and then looked back at Suzie, frowning. 

“It’s 8:32 am.”

“Yeah and that’s  _ late, _ ” Suzie said, her brow rising. “We had to help Charlie go potty.”

“And did she go?” Susan asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, she went,” Suzie replied in a tone that only made Susan more suspicious.

“In the potty?” she clarified, narrowing her eyes.

“Well,  _ yeah,” _ Suzie said as if it wasn’t a question. “Where  _ else _ would she go?”

“I don’t know, dear,” Susan said flatly, rubbing at her eyes, “but the way you said that, I couldn’t be sure.”

“Don’t you guys have to go to work?” Annie said, rolling onto her back (and partially onto Suzie) to look between her mothers. 

“Not today,” Kerry grumbled. She waved them to go. “Go play. We’ll be up in a little while.”

“No, no. We’ll be quiet,” Annie said quickly. “We won’t make you get up.”

“I want up!” Charlie moaned in protest.

“Okay,” Annie conceded. “Suzie and I won’t make you get up, but Charlie will.”

Kerry lifted her head again and then held out her hands towards her youngest daughter. 

“Come here, Charlie.” When the toddler had happily climbed over her sisters into her Momma’s arms, Kerry squeezed her tight to her and closed her eyes. “There. Now, Charlie can’t get up either.”

_ “Noooo,” _ Charlie whined. “Up! Up, up, up!”

“No, no up. Just down,” Kerry said sleepily, patting Charlie on the back. “Just down.”

_ “Uuuuuuuup.” _

At Charlie’s continued whine, Annie and Suzie exchanged glances. 

“So, what happened last night? Why did Daddy and Abba have to come over? What was the emergency?” Annie asked, turning her head with each question.

“Annalise, you  _ just _ said you were going to let us sleep,” Kerry hissed. 

“Well, Charlie’s not gonna let you, so why should we?” Annie said with a horizontal shrug. 

“Okay, that’s it,” Kerry said with a huff. She waved them all out of the bed again. “If this is not your bed, go. Now. Out. All of you.”

Annie seemed to consider this for a moment.

“Mmmmm… No.”

Understanding the risk of this answer, Annie rolled back over towards Susan, who pulled her close to her.

“Annie, come here,” Susan murmured as she hugged Annie tight.

“Mommy, you’re squishing me.” 

“Yep. Squishing you into silence.”

“I will not be squished into silence!” Annie protested (though it was muffled as her face was pressed into Susan’s shoulder).

“I want to be squished into silence,” Suzie said. 

“Trust me, Suzie,” Susan said as she released Annie. “You’re next.”

“You two should let Mommy sleep because she had to get a shot yesterday,” Kerry said firmly before muttering, “And you should let me sleep because I learned Mommy got a shot yesterday.”

As expected, the (first) statement caused both Suzie and Annie to sit up in alarm.

“You had to get a shot?” Annie asked, wide-eyed. 

“Mm-hmm.” Susan pulled one side of the Band-Aid off and lifted her left arm so they could see the spots. “Some people came in really sick and we all had to get vaccinated before we could leave.”

“You got-” Suzie counted the visible needle pricks, her expression growing more horrified with each number. _ “-Fifteen shots?” _

“No, it was one shot,” Susan said, pressing the bandage back down and lowering her arm. “It just takes fifteen pokes to give it.”

Annie and Suzie both gaped at her in shock. 

“Do  _ we _ have to get poked fifteen times?” Annie asked nervously. 

“Nope,” Kerry replied, shaking her head. “Thanks to Mommy. She saved everybody.”

“I will never complain about having to get shots again,” Suzie said seriously.  _ “Ever.” _

“That’s doubtful,”Susan remarked, “but thank you.”

“So, what exactly happened?” Annie asked, frowning. “You said sick people came in, but don’t sick people come in all the time? You don’t have to get shots for them, right? So, why did you get shots for this one?”

“They were sick with something that people don’t get shots for anymore,” Susan replied. “They were really worried that we were going to take it out into the world that they gave us all shots and then closed the hospital for two whole weeks.”

“Two whole weeks?” Annie and Suzie said together. 

“Yep. Two whole weeks.”

“But where will people go if they get hurt or sick?” Annie asked, her brow knitting in concern. 

Kerry couldn’t help the way her heart swelled with pride as Annie looked from her to Susan in question. By the sound of her voice, she was seemingly just as nervous about the potential of this as she was about getting stuck fifteen times with a needle. 

“That’s a very good question, honey,” Kerry answered with a small smile on her voice. “But the answer is they’ll just have to go somewhere else until it’s okay to go back.”

“So, what are you going to do for two weeks since you can’t go to work?” Suzie asked, cocking her head. 

“Well, I have to do  _ some _ work,” Kerry said. “If we want there to be a hospital to go back to.”

“I’d say that’s debatable,” Susan stated, turning her head to look at her. 

“That I have to work?” Kerry asked, raising an eyebrow. “Or that we want there to be a hospital to go back to?”

Susan inhaled deeply for a moment. 

“Both?” 

Kerry rolled her eyes. 

“But other than that,” Suzie said, pushing the conversation back on track. “What else are you going to do?”

“Well, I think we should all go on vacation,” Susan suggested. 

Both girls sat up straighter. 

“Really? To where?”

“I was thinking Arizona,” Susan replied. “What do you think? We all go out to Phoenix to visit Aunt Chloe? And meet the new baby?”

Suzie and Annie deflated somewhat (which Susan had a feeling was due to the fact that they were hoping she’d suggest Disney World), but still seemed to consider the offer carefully. 

“Are there beaches in Arizona? Because Kelly and her family went to Florida a couple weeks ago and when she was telling me about it, I realized that I’ve never been to the beach,” Annie stated, before adding, “I mean a  _ real _ beach. The lake doesn’t count.”

“We went to the beach,” Kerry said in confusion. “A long time ago. Yeah, you, me, and Daddy- Oh, wait. Never mind. That was before you were born.”

Annie gave her mother her mother’s own signature look of exasperation. Beside her, Suzie crossed her arms. 

“I want to go to the beach too.”

“Me too!” Charlie added. 

“Well, there’s a lot of sand in Arizona, but I don’t think there are any beaches there.”

“It’s not far from California, though, is it?” Kerry asked. “We could do a couple days with your sister and then a couple days at the beach.”

“That could work,” Susan said, before looking at her eldest daughter. “Annie, go get your map.”

“I  _ can’t _ go get my map because Suzie  _ took _ my map,” Annie replied before shooting a look at the aforementioned map thief. 

“Suzie, go get Annie’s map.”

Suzie scrambled off the bed to do as she was told, returning a moment later with Annie’s map of the United States. 

After determining that Phoenix was only a couple hours from San Diego and, therefore, they could feasibly do both, Susan handed the map back to its rightful owner. There was no argument over it, however, as the girls were too excited about packing their bags for vacation (Susan’s warning that nothing was set in stone until she called her sister apparently not a deterrent). 

Soon, Kerry and Susan were alone on the bed again, save for Charlie, who, when offered the chance to get up, decided she’d rather stay cuddled in Kerry’s arms after all. 

“How do you feel?” Kerry asked as she rubbed Charlie’s back. 

“I don’t know,” Susan replied honestly. “I… I…”

Susan laid back against her pillow for a moment, thinking hard. 

“You made a rule a long time ago that all ER Attendings had to review the emergency response plan once per quarter,” she began, thinking out loud. “And I always did, but- but when I got to the parts about ‘Pathogen Exposure’ and ‘Biological Phenomena,’ I always just sort of… glossed over it. 

“I mean, it’s like Annie said, that’s what we _do._ _Of course,_ we’re going to get exposed to things from time to time, but it’s normal. It’s just part of the job. But this… This made me realize how comfortable I am. How used to modern medicine I am. Because when you think about it, all the communicable diseases that used to be death sentences aren’t anymore. We deal with them all the time like it’s nothing.

“The Spanish Flu killed millions. Polio shut down entire towns. Carter said smallpox killed half of Europe. TB used to be called ‘the consumption’ because there was no cure, so you just got consumed from the inside out. I mean, when you really think about it, if Adam or Jeanie had been diagnosed with HIV even  _ one year _ before they were, they probably wouldn’t be here today because the cocktail didn’t exist yet. There was no  _ truly _ effective treatment up until then.”

Susan took a deep breath and rubbed her hands over her face. 

“What would have happened if it got out?” she asked only semi-rhetorically. “All it would take was one person leaving the ER and taking it home to their husband, who is set to get on a plane from O’Hare to JFK this morning. When they land, they meet someone going from New York to London and then that person meets someone going from London to Beijing and, within hours, the virus has traveled around the world.”

Susan turned over onto her side and propped herself up on her arm. 

“Kerry, I had no immunity to it. Not even from a vaccination. What if… What if something like that happened where  _ no one _ had any immunity to it? What would… What would we do? What would happen?”

Kerry didn’t answer for a moment. Instead, she murmured something to Charlie, who immediately crawled out of her arms and over to Susan. She took the moment of Charlie cuddling herself into Susan’s chest to mull over the questions.

“I think…I think the only thing we could do is what you did last night,” she began slowly. “Even if there’s not much we could do to treat it, we… we just keep doing whatever we can for as long as we can. We attend to our patients and we… we get through it. And, assuming a pandemic like that could not be stopped in one night, we would do our best to find any good in the crisis that we could.”

Susan looked at Kerry.

“What if there is no good?” 

It was Kerry’s turn to inhale deeply. 

“There would have to be, even if it was something small. Because if there isn’t, then there wouldn’t be a point to continue going on,” she thought aloud. Then, she gave Susan a small smirk. “Besides, if there’s anything I can rely on, it’s that you will  _ always _ find an opportunity to tease me if you can. And, if you can’t, that’s how I’ll know we were well and truly screwed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, this episode was not nearly as emotionally draining to write about as the last one was, save for Susan's statement that "The virus is an unknown player." I did have to gloss over most of the Romano part, though, because amputations (particuarly traumatic ones) are something I cannot talk about nor write about for that matter. It's just... Yeah, no. We're going to deal with the aftermath of that particular event here in a couple chapters, but I didn't want to linger on the actual event too much. There was ample Susan-related stuff in this episode, though, so I still had plenty of canon material to deal with. 
> 
> The last few paragraphs are definitely a bit more heavy-handed with these episodes serving as an allegory for today's reality. I needed them to happen just as much as I needed them to wake up with all three children in their bed, though, because both felt necessary as part of the debriefing- the children to ground them and the conversation to open them up about the night's events. 
> 
> I'm excited for the next several chapters, as I didn't venture into Season 9 in the "uc" universe. This will be new stuff for me to write fic about, though I can say most of Kerry's S9 storyline won't really be at play much. It occurred to me recently that in canon, Kerry is trying to get pregnant with her first child, as opposed to this universe, where she will be helping to prepare her first child for her thirteenth birthday. I won't say why that's important (though you may be able to guess what's coming).
> 
> One thing I _can_ say, though, is if you're interested in some great AU takes of Kerry's Season 9 storyline, you should check out [Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24877816) by [pgk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pgk/pseuds/pgk) and [After Barbados](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25070494) by [simplywoven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplywoven/pseuds/simplywoven). They are both Kerry/Sandy fics that focus on this subject and are very, very good (and also sometimes very, very sad). 
> 
> I'm looking forward to what's coming and I hope you are, too. It's really weird to think we're getting close to the end, but I have faith that you're going to enjo what's in store.
> 
> Until next time.


	44. Next to Normal

It’s said that the thing that makes vacations special is that eventually they eventually come to an end. But as Susan sat under the shade of an umbrella, gently rocking her new niece as her family played in the pool in Chloe’s backyard, she was fairly certain she could do this forever.

She’d encouraged (read: begged) Kerry to prescribe her a few Xanax to get through the flight to Phoenix, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Apparently, trying to get three children through post-9/11 airport security was more than enough of a distraction.

The Transportation Security Administration was still very young in summer of 2002, and special conditions like, for example, screening procedures for disabled individuals had not yet been fully developed. They learned this first hand when Kerry ended up getting patted down as the TSA agent she’d been working with never bothered to ask if she could walk through the scanner without her crutch. Annie was nearly reduced to tears by a different agent who tried to forcibly take her crutches from her in order to scan them in the x-ray machine. Luckily for her, though, her mother was well-versed in disability law and completely unafraid of publicly shaming grown men. (Which she did. Loudly.)

Susan was so busy keeping track of Suzie and Charlie throughout all this that it wasn’t until they were being instructed to fasten their seatbelts and prepare for take-off that she had the chance to actually process what was happening. By the time her anxiety had kicked in enough for her to actually start panicking, the toddler on her lap began to kick at the back of the chair in front of her, pulling Susan’s attention away from thoughts of impending doom and instead towards apologizing to the people around her.

Chloe’s husband Kevin picked them up from the airport when they touched down in Arizona. He was a short, soft-spoken Latino man who pointed out different landmarks and entertained them with local history as he drove them back to the house.

The modest ranch sat at the foot of one of the mountains that surrounded the city. When they arrived, Chloe introduced them to four-month-old Liliana Grace. Perhaps it was just her proximity to Suzie at that age, but Susan felt baby Lily bore a remarkable resemblance to her cousin Suzie. 

Over the next four days, they rose early so the girls could play outside in the pool before the sun rose too high in the sky. They’d then spend the heat of the day reading, watching movies, or exploring what the city had to offer before returning home for dinner and maybe a little bit more pool time before bed (if the girls had been good that day). 

On the fifth day, they bade goodbye to the Lewis-Rodriguez family before loading their luggage and the girls into the SUV Kerry had rented for them and headed west towards the village of La Jolla just north of San Diego. 

The drive from Phoenix to San Diego was only five-and-a-half hours, but with three children under the age of twelve, it turned into an all-day trip. Sure, they’d gotten a later start than planned and there was traffic to deal with, but most of the added time was due to the fact that they had to stop at least once an hour for potty breaks, meals, or to let the children run around for ten minutes so they didn’t strangle each other before the next break.

Still, regardless of their stops, the girls (and their mothers) were still on edge by the time they arrived at the beach house they’d rented. Knowing that sorting out rooms and carrying things upstairs was likely to lead to arguments and/or tears, Susan decided to go against the plan and take the girls out to the water. 

Standing on the beach and looking out at the ocean is an experience all its own, but watching someone see the ocean for the first time is something else entirely. And, for Susan and Kerry, it would go down as one of the most magical things they’d ever witnessed.

In an instant, the girls fell silent as the vastness of the Pacific Ocean was laid before them. All the pestering, prodding, and poking they’d been doing in the car ended the moment they looked out at the glittering water that seemed to go on forever. 

They stayed like that for a long time, the waves lapping at their feet as the sun slowly dipped below the horizon. In the brightness of the setting sun, the girls seemed to glow. 

The final few days of their journey were much of the same.

Each morning, they’d drag their beach things down to the water, where the girls would proceed to run amok along the shore. Annie and Suzie played in the waves while Charlie sat on the shore, digging at the sand with a plastic shovel. Occasionally, Kerry and Susan would wade out into the water with them, often bringing Charlie along with them, to cool off in the water when the sun grew too hot overhead. 

Their enjoyment of the beach led to quite a bit of protest when it finally came time to fly back to Chicago. However, if the amount of sand that had accumulated in clothing, shoes, and (though it was not clear how) crutches was any indication, they were going to be bringing plenty of the beach home with them.

And, then, as quickly as it had begun, their vacation was over. 

Suddenly, they were back in Chicago. Back to their own house and their own cars. Back to sports schedules and daycare routines,their trip lingering only in memories,tan lines, and rolls of film to develop. 

Kerry insisted that it was not her decision to reopen County at six o’clock in the morning and that that was forced upon her by the Board of Directors. She and Susan were both there bright and early in preparation for the inevitable onslaught. 

Susan took solace in the fact that all five people in quarantine had made it through safely and without further signs of illness. But the solace barely lasted the morning as the patients and traumas began to roll in.

The first week back to work was one of the hardest that Susan had ever been through. She’d spent the two weeks surrounded by that which filled her that she’d nearly forgotten how much the hospital managed to take out of her.

First, it was a seven-year-old with a case of gastroenteritis that had dehydrated her so badly that she could barely stand without passing out. Then, it was a twelve-year-old in an irreversible coma from an MVA. But what finally landed Susan in the scrub closet in tears was a toddler with a broken arm due to what they were now calling ‘Non-Accidental Trauma.’ Or, in other words, child abuse. 

But not even that knocked her out like getting the CT scans back on a 38-year-old Black man who’d been complaining of intense headaches.

“Mr. Stanley?” Susan asked quietly as she stepped into the exam room where he lay on the bed. 

“Yeah?”

“I got your scans back...” she began slowly.

Susan inhaled deeply the way she always did before giving bad news. But before she could give it, the man let out a small chuckle. 

“It’s back, isn’t it?”

Susan frowned and then glanced down at the tumor clearly visible on the imaging clipped to the chart in her hand and back up at him.

“You… You knew?” 

“I had a feeling,” Mr. Stanley replied with a small shrug. “Headaches were how it started last time.”

“You didn’t mention tumors or cancer in your history.”

“Yeah, I did that on purpose,” he explained. “I figured if I told you that’s what happened last time, you’d automatically assume that without running any tests. At least this way, I know that’s it for sure.”

Susan nodded for a moment. 

“I can…” She let out a sigh. “I’d like to refer you to one of our Oncologists upstairs.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I already got one,” he said, waving her away. “I’ll give him a call when I leave. He knows all my history and stuff. And I like him.”

“Alright, then,” Susan said, nodding. “In that case, I’ll have the nurse discharge you.”

“Sounds good,” Mr. Stanley said with a nod of his own. “And thank you.”

Susan didn’t feel right nodding at his thanks (as she felt this was certainly not something to be thankful for), but it didn’t feel right  _ not _ to nod. 

He seemed almost… relieved. Not relieved that it was back, but rather just relieved to have an answer. 

It wasn’t the first time Susan had come across someone like this; someone who was truly happy just to get a diagnosis and to know that their symptoms or pain or feelings were real. They were valid. They might not always be a good thing, but at the very least, they had validation. 

Susan passed the chart off to Connie for discharge and started in the direction of the desk. But, then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of familiar blonde curls. 

She turned in the direction of said curls and then immediately both lit up and felt herself  _ tear _ up.

“Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth turned at the sound of her name. It was clear by the look on her face that she had the same reaction Susan had. 

She paused momentarily to hand Ella off to Haleh (who was only  _ more _ than happy to take her) before turning back to Susan. But no sooner had she done so than did Susan wrap her arms around her in a hug. 

“I’ve missed you,” Susan said as she squeezed Elizabeth tight to her. 

“I’ve missed you, too,” Elizabeth replied, squeezing her back. 

When they broke apart, Elizabeth wiped tears from her eyes, though she was smiling. 

“What are you doing here?” Susan asked, scanning Elizabeth’s face for some kind of answer. “I thought you left. Someone told me you moved.”

“I did. I went back to England,” Elizabeth confirmed, nodding. “I felt I needed to be with my family. But as soon as I got there, it occurred to me that… that that wasn’t the family I needed.”

Susan could only manage a small smile unless she wanted to completely lose it right then and there. 

“Does this mean you’re back?” she asked in a quiet but hopeful voice. 

Elizabeth smiled. 

“Yes. I’m back.”

“Oh, thank  _ God,” _ Susan said, exhaling deeply. “I’ve… It’s been hard enough losing him. It was even worse to lose you too.”

It was Elizabeth’s turn to nearly smile to hide the fact she was about to lose it. 

“So,” Susan continued, sensing the emotion in the air. “Where are you staying? Are you moving back to the house?”

Elizabeth shook her head, her curls bouncing as she did so. 

“No, the house sold. We’re staying at a hotel. I’m planning on touring some apartments. It’s only me and Ella. We don’t need all that room.” Elizabeth inhaled deeply. “And, besides, I… I don’t really fancy going back there anyways.”

“Too many bad memories?”

Elizabeth gave another small shake of her head.

“Too many good ones.”

The statement was enough to knock Susan back several steps, but she did her best to hold her ground. 

“Come stay with us,” she said, forcing herself to remain upright (even just metaphorically). “Don’t waste your money on a hotel. We’ve got a guest bedroom upstairs.”

“Are you sure?” Elizabeth asked skeptically. “Don’t you need to talk to your wife?”

“No, no,” Susan replied, waving her away. “I’ll just have her get the girls to get their crap out of it when she gets home.”

Elizabeth chuckled. 

“Alright,” she said with a small shrug. “I, however, was hoping to talk to your wife. Have you seen her?”

“Not down here much today,” Susan said, glancing around. “But I’ll walk you up to her office.”

Elizabeth nodded and followed Susan towards the elevator, before promptly doubling back to get Ella. The nurses were not eager to give the one-year-old up, so Elizabeth left her with them before heading upstairs. 

Kerry’s assistant was away from his desk, so Susan listened to the closed door for a moment before knocking. At the clear, “Come in,” from inside, she turned the handle and pushed it open. 

Kerry was alone in the office, typing furiously on the open laptop in front of her. She glanced up for a brief second. Upon recognition of her guests, she sat up, smiling as she closed the computer. 

“Elizabeth, it’s so good to see you,” Kerry said as she rose from her chair. 

She carefully stepped around the desk to give Elizabeth a hug, which Elizabeth returned. 

“It’s good to see you, too,” Elizabeth said as she pulled away. “I was telling Susan that it just didn’t feel right to be away.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Kerry said, nodding. “And not just because we’ve been short on competent surgeons as of late.”

“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked, frowning. “What about Robert?”

She looked between Kerry and Susan, which prompted Susan to let out an  _ “Ohhhhhh,” _ of understanding.

“You haven’t been here.” When Elizabeth’s eyes grew as wide as her own, Susan quickly added, “He’s fine… Well, sort of. I’ll tell you later.”

Elizabeth continued to stare at her, mouth slightly agape for a moment, before turning back to Kerry. She shook her head a bit as if to clear the thoughts from her head before taking a deep breath. 

“Actually, Kerry,” Elizabeth began, “I was hoping to ask you about any Surgical Attending positions that may be open.”

To her and Susan’s surprise, Kerry’s brow furrowed slightly in confusion. 

“Open positions?” she asked with a tone as equally confused as her expression. “Why don’t you just resume your current position?”

“My current position?” Elizabeth repeated, her confusion matching Kerry’s. “I… I don’t have one. I resigned.”

Kerry paused for a moment. 

“You did?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, nodding seriously. “I left a letter on your desk.”

Kerry took a moment to think back, but it was clear from the look on her face that she didn’t seem to know what Elizabeth was talking about.

But before Elizabeth could remind her further, Kerry appeared to suddenly remember. 

“Oh.  _ That  _ letter,” Kerry said, before grimacing. “I do remember getting a resignation letter, but I didn’t realize it was from you.”

“You… didn’t?” Elizabeth in disbelief. 

Beside her, Susan looked just as shocked as Elizabeth did. 

She remembered Kerry telling her about the letter. So, why was Kerry suddenly unable to remember it?

“I didn’t. I thought it was from Dr. Cannady in Pathology,” she informed them both. “Well, that certainly explains why he was so taken aback when I asked why he hadn’t cleaned out his desk yet.”

Kerry closed her eyes and heaved a heavy sigh.

“I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. It’s been… a rough summer. To say the least.”

“You’re telling me.”

Kerry gave a small shrug of acknowledgement. 

“Well, on the bright side, you don’t have to go through onboarding again.”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, but not in anger. Rather, she smirked in seeming suspicion. 

“I haven’t been here in two and a half months,” Elizabeth said, something almost like laughter in her voice. “If you didn’t inform HR of my resignation, what do they think I’ve been doing?”

“That is a very good question,” Kerry thought aloud. “One that’s probably better answered by them than by me.”

Elizabeth’s eyes glanced between the two women, seemingly waiting for one of them to crack a smile. But when neither Kerry nor Susan did, she cracked one herself. 

“Well, then… I guess I should probably go sort that out with them.”

“Probably,” Kerry agreed. “Again, I’m sorry.”

“It’s quite alright,” Elizabeth assured, her smile growing as she started for the office door. 

“Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth paused and turned back. 

“Yes?”

“It’s good to have you back,” Kerry stated with a small nod. 

Elizabeth smiled.

“It’s good to be back.”

And, with that, Elizabeth left, leaving just Susan and Kerry alone in Kerry’s office. 

Kerry leaned back against her desk for another moment before circling back around the desk to her chair. Just as she made to open her computer, she caught sight of the look of doubt on Susan’s face and raised her eyebrows in question.

“You told me about the letter.”

“What?” 

“You told me about the letter Elizabeth left on your desk,” Susan repeated. 

“Did I? Huh. Well, I must have forgotten.”

“If you’d forgotten about it,” Susan said, taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of Kerry’s desk, “then, you wouldn’t have told me.”

“It’s very possible I did,” Kerry said, raising her hands defensively. “As I said to her just now, it’s been a rough summer. Or did you forget they closed my hospital for two weeks?”

A small smirk grew on Susan’s face. 

“So, you did see it.”

“Maybe I did…” Kerry said with a shrug, before dropping her voice. “And maybe I pretended I didn’t.”

Susan leaned forward in her chair, her eyes narrowing. 

“What  _ exactly _ does HR think she’s been doing all summer?”

Kerry paused like she was about to deflect again or perhaps attempt to feign ignorance. But, instead, she just shrugged. 

“I told them she was on sabbatical. It was the only way to keep them from posting the position while not paying her.” Kerry inhaled deeply. “I told them it was only for three months, though. Two more weeks and I would have had them close it.”

Susan considered this for a moment and then shook her head. 

“How did you know that she was going to come back?”

There was a long moment of silence before Kerry answered. 

“I didn’t. I just… I don’t know. I just hoped she would. Same as you.”

Susan sat for a long moment, thinking about how much she loved Kerry, before her smirk grew. 

“Did you really fire Dr. Cannady?” she asked, unable to help herself. 

“What? Oh, yes. But not for this. He was sleeping with his medical students,” Kerry informed her simply. 

Susan’s smirk grew into a full smile and then softened. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, though, it’s just hospital policy,” Kerry said with a shrug. “And, frankly, one that doesn’t seem that hard to follow. How hard is it to not sleep with medical students?”

Susan rolled her eyes. 

“You know what I meant.”

Kerry raised her eyebrows as if she didn’t know what Susan meant, before sitting back in her chair.

She glanced out of one of the tall windows looking out over the city of Chicago.

“You’re not the only one who missed her,” she said after a long moment. “And certainly not the only one who misses him.”

Elizabeth and Ella only stayed in their guest room for a few weeks before Elizabeth found a nice two bedroom apartment not too far away. Susan and some of the others from the hospital helped her move her things in before Kerry brought the girls over along with a nice dinner for them all. 

Elizabeth returned to work around the same time, temporarily taking over the Chief of Surgery position as Robert Romano was still out on medical leave. 

Susan checked in with her a lot over the first few days. Elizabeth found it too reminiscent of the twenty-eight days’ worth of pushing Susan had done that spring though that Elizabeth put a stop to it rather quickly. Deep down, though, she very much liked the fact that someone cared enough to make sure she was okay.

Coming back was an adjustment, but, thankfully, not as hard as she’d expected. It was almost like returning to normal. 

(But not quite.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken so long to update. This week was the big move and was accompanied by some meltdowns on my part (because all the plans felt like they were falling apart) and then a lack of WiFi in our new place for two days. But we're good now! I still have to do some cleaning and finishing up at the old place, but hopefully, we'll get back on a more regular update schedule. 
> 
> Unfortunately, because I couldn't post yesterday due to my lack of internet connection, I missed Annie's birthday! Yesterday was July 26th, which means Annie Levin and the Americans with Disabilities Act both turned thirty yesterday! Thank you to simplywoven for wishing Annie a happy birthday in the comments :) It made my day. It actually works out timing wise, as we'll be hitting on both the ADA and Annie's birthday in the coming chapters. It's hard to believe we're reaching the end, but I'm excited for what's still in store. 
> 
> One last thought about this chapter before I sign off is that, in addition to Susan and Lizzie being friends, I wanted to have a little bit of Kerry and Lizzie friendship too. Remember when they got along really well in Lizzie's first couple seasons? You know, before the writers hurt Lizzie and Kerry and also me with the Season 7 stuff. We are trying to make up for past mistakes in this and all of my AUs. Plus, one thing I really like about Kerry's character is that a lot of her care for other staff members come out in small things, like when she offers Carol a few extra days off after Doug leaves.
> 
> Anyways, it's past my bedtime, and one thing that _has_ changed significantly with this move is that I now have a forty-minute commute to work. 
> 
> Hope you're all having a good day/night! Until next time.


	45. The Hopeless Wounded

Annie carefully traced over the Hebrew letter _ש_ in her workbook, moving her pencil from right to left. But when she sat up straighter to observe her work from a different angle, she heard the sound of frustrated grunting and looked up.

A few feet away from where she sat on her Waiting Stool at the Admit Desk, a bald man in a white lab coat was attempting to lift a box up off the floor. For a moment, she thought the box must be heavy given how much difficulty he seemed to have in picking it up before she noticed how little his left arm seemed to be moving. 

“Do you need help?”

Romano looked up, searching for a second for the owner of the voice before he noticed Annie sitting there. He glanced from her to the box and then waved her away with his right hand.

“No, no. I’ve got it.”

“Okay,” Annie replied with a shrug. 

She continued to watch him for a moment before turning her attention back to her workbook. 

“What? You’re just going to sit there while I struggle?” Romano asked. 

Annie looked up again to see him looking at her in frustration. At the expectant look on his face, her brow furrowed in anger. 

“You just said you didn’t need it,” she said firmly. “You’re not supposed to help a disabled person without asking. And you’re _really_ not supposed to help them if you asked and they said no.”

At the word ‘disabled,’ Romano stiffened. 

“I’m not disabled,” he said quickly. 

Annie frowned. 

“Your arm doesn’t work.”

“My arm is _healing,”_ Romano corrected. 

Annie considered this for a moment and then shrugged. 

“So? You can be disabled temporarily.”

Romano looked at her for a moment before shaking his head. 

“What-What… What are you doing here?” he asked, his irritation clear in his tone. 

“I’m waiting for my mom.”

“Well, her office is upstairs.”

Annie rolled her eyes. 

“I mean my _other_ mom.”

“Well, then go wait in the lounge,” Romano said, motioning towards the lounge door. 

“No,” Annie stated firmly. “This is where I sit. This is where I _always_ sit. If I go sit in the lounge, they’re going to think I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing.”

“Fine.” Romano threw his good arm up in concession. “Just go back to your… Whatever.”

Annie gave him a look of exasperation (that he was certain she’d learned from the mother whose office was upstairs) before looking back at her book again.

Romano turned back to the box and attempted to pick it up again. But as he worked to get it balanced on his left hand so he could get a better grip on it with his right, he sensed Annie’s eyes on his back. 

“Are you still watching…” he said angrily, spinning around only to see the redhead on the stool immersed in her work. “...Me?”

Annie looked up from her workbook again and frowned. 

“What?”

“I was just making sure you weren’t still watching me,” Romano said, straightening up.

“What? No,” Annie said with a look of disgust. “You’re weird.”

“No, _you’re_ weird.”

“No, I’m _twelve.”_

Romano looked at her in confusion for a moment before scoffing. 

“What does that have anything to do with anything?”

“Mommy says nobody’s weird when they’re twelve because _everybody’s_ weird when they’re twelve,” Annie informed him simply. 

Romano opened his mouth and raised a finger at her, ready to reply, but then paused. 

“Which one is Mommy?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. 

“Susan.”

“And what do you call the other one?” 

“Momma.”

Romano nodded and then raised his finger again. 

“You can be just as aggravating as your Momma is, you know that?” he said sternly. 

To his surprise, Annie just shrugged in acknowledgement.

“Yeah, I know.”

Romano’s brow rose. 

“You know?”

“People have told me that before,” Annie replied earnestly. 

“Like who?” Romano asked, his brow furrowing. “Who’s told you that?”

“Mommy… and Daddy…” Annie thought aloud before adding brightly, “And Momma.”

“Your Momma has told you that you’re just as aggravating as she is?” 

“Well, that’s not _exactly_ what she said,” Annie said slowly. “But I think that’s what she meant.”

Romano just shook his head again. Annie, though, cocked hers in question. 

“Why don’t you want to call yourself disabled?” she asked curiously. “It’s not a bad word. If it was, I wouldn’t be allowed to say it.”

Romano let out a small chuckle. 

“I bet you and your Momma don’t think there’s anything wrong with being disabled,” he remarked with a huff.

“There’s nothing right or wrong about it. It’s just the way it is,” Annie said simply. “I’ve always been disabled. So has Momma.”

“What? You two have some… genetic thing going on?” Romano asked with a vague gesture at Annie’s crutches, which were leaned against the counter next to her. 

“Sorta?” Annie replied in a tone of uncertainty. “She said it’s not genetic, but it also kinda is.”

“Wow,” Romano said flatly. “That’s a very scientific answer of her.”

Annie gave him another look of exasperation before sitting forward on her stool. She observed him closely for a moment through narrowed eyes. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out. “Why don’t you want to call yourself disabled?”

Romano involuntarily cringed at the word once more, but that only made Annie appear even more curious. So, he heaved a sigh and stepped forward towards her, dropping his voice. 

“Alright. You want the truth?”

Annie nodded sincerely. Romano took another deep breath. 

“If I’m disabled,” he began in a voice barely more than a whisper, “then that means I can’t do surgery anymore. It’s my favorite thing in the world and the only thing I’m good at.”

Annie was quiet for a moment, seemingly considering his words closely. 

For a moment, he expected her to apologize or even just offer her condolences, but instead, she just frowned and asked, “You’re only good at one thing?”

“Oh, Jesus _Christ,”_ Romano said, scoffing. “Why the hell am I discussing this with a twelve year old?”

“Because I asked,” Annie replied automatically. “Why can’t you do surgery anymore?”

Romano had the fleeting thought to just walk away from the conversation, but he didn’t. Perhaps it was how much Annie reminded him of Kerry, but he couldn’t walk away that easily. 

“Well, as you so _astutely_ pointed out, my arm doesn’t work.”

Again, he thought surely this would warrant the same sort of response that everyone else had been giving him, but again, her expression remained neutral.

“And you can’t do surgery with just one arm?”

“No,” he replied firmly. “There is no way to do surgery with just one arm.”

Annie looked as if she was about to nod, before her expression changed to one of skepticism.

“Well, have you talked to the _other_ surgeons with just one arm and ask how they do it?” she wondered. 

“They don’t exist.”

Annie’s skepticism deepened. 

“Are you sure? I mean, have you _looked?_ Because you can’t say they don’t exist if you haven’t looked,” she stated, not even trying to hide the doubt in her voice. “That’s like Momma’s rule about finding things. You can’t go to her and say you can’t find something if you haven’t looked for it first, because if she goes into your room and it’s sitting right there because you didn’t look, then you’re going to get in trouble.... Unless you’re looking for your shoes, in which case, they’re under the couch.”

Romano closed his eyes for a moment, knowing better to ask, but unable to stop himself. 

“Why would your shoes be under the couch?”

“Because that’s where Charlie likes to put them.” At Romano’s questioning frown, she added, “We don’t know why.”

Romano shook the thought of a toddler hiding shoes out of his head to better consider Annie’s suggestion. 

“How sure are you that there are other surgeons out there that I could talk to?” 

“I’m not,” Annie replied simply. “I just know you can’t say there aren’t unless you look.”

“Well, what if I look and there aren’t any?” he asked with genuine curiosity in his voice. “What do I do then?”

“Well, if there aren’t any, then you’d have to figure out how to do it yourself. Which is harder. But not necessarily impossible,” Annie said with another shrug. “Momma didn’t know any other disabled doctors when she became a doctor, so she had to figure it all out herself. Which she said was hard… but she still did it.”

“Well, that’s different,” Romano said almost defensively. “Your mom’s problem is with her leg. Not her arm.”

“Well… _yeah,”_ Annie conceded, not bothering to correct him (though she personally hated the misconception). “But she still has to use her crutch all the time, so one of her hands is always busy. She had to figure out how to do a lot of things differently than everyone else does.

“Like she had to figure out when she needed to put her crutch aside and also how far away her crutch could be, because if other people walked away, she’d need to get to it. She even said that she taught herself how to write her initials with both hands so she didn’t have to put her crutch down to write on the board.”

As she explained Kerry’s self-imposed ambidexterity, Annie mimed writing her own initials mid-air with both hands.

“Well, that’s great for her,” Romano said with a small nod of concession before heaving another sigh. “But even if I figured out how to do surgery, the other surgeons wouldn’t let me.”

Annie looked taken aback at this. 

“You mean even if you figured out how to do it with one hand just as good as you did it with two, they still wouldn’t let you?”

Romano nodded. And, again, acting against his expectations, Annie did not sulk or make a face but rather lit up. 

“Well, that’s not allowed,” she said confidently. 

Romano frowned. 

“What do you mean?” he asked, his interest piqued. 

Annie started to reply, but then seemed to think better of it and, instead, just shook her head. 

“Nevermind,” she said. “It doesn’t apply to you.”

“What do you mean?” Romano asked again, this time more urgently. 

“You said you aren’t disabled, so it doesn’t apply to you,” Annie said before crossing her arms and turning her nose up at him. 

Romano rolled his eyes. But instead of deterring Annie from her game, it only seemed to strengthen her resolve.

“Alright, fine,” he said after a long moment. “Let’s pretend for a moment that I am.”

“That you are what?” Annie asked, cupping a hand around her ear. 

Romano rolled his eyes again, mentally cursing himself for getting swept up in this.

“That I’m disabled,” he finished. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, if you’re disabled, then you’re protected under the _Americans with Disabilities Act_ ,” she informed him cheerfully.

“The ADA?”

“Mm-hmm,” Annie confirmed, nodding. “It gives you the rights to the -ations: Participation, accomodation, and protection from discrimintation. The -ations. 

“Which means that if you were to figure out a way to do surgery with just one hand that was safe for you and for the person you’re doing surgery on and was just as good as if you did it with _two_ hands, then by law, they have to allow you reasonable accommodation to do it.”

Annie paused for a moment, thinking. 

“Momma doesn’t like the word ‘reasonable,’” she added. “She says that’s how people get away with _not_ doing it.”

Romano paused too, giving himself a moment to take in Annie’s words. Then, he frowned at her. 

“How do you know all this?” he asked as if suddenly remembering he was discussing this with a twelve-year-old.

“Momma made me learn it. She said it was important for me to know,” Annie informed him. Then, she smiled. “Also, it was signed on my birthday.”

“She just… She just _taught you_ the ADA?” Romano asked in disbelief. “She just brought it up in general conversation?”

“Yeah. She also made me learn the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Thirteenth Amendment, the Nineteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act, and… the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Annie said, listing them off on her fingers. “Oh! And Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. I almost forgot that one because it’s new… To me. It’s not a new law.”

Romano stared at her, his mouth working wordlessly as he tried to process this.

“Why?” was all he could manage to say for a long moment. “Why would she make you memorize all that?”

“She said they were important to know!” Annie said emphatically. “Also, she made me learn them so she can quiz me on them when she takes me with her to vote.”

Romano shook his head. 

“Your mom is weird,” he said, before adding, “And I can say that because she’s not twelve.”

This earned him another look of exasperation, but it was clear to them both that Romano seemed a little less sullen than he did a second ago.

“You could probably ask Momma if she knows any surgeons you could talk to,” Annie suggested. “She knows a _lot_ of disabled doctors. I think she’s in a group… But I don’t know that for sure.”

Romano inhaled deeply and then, to _Annie’s_ surprise, he nodded.

“I might.” 

She smiled in her normal cheerful way. He glanced at her crutches for a split second and then raised his eyebrows. 

“Do you have any tips on how to carry things one-handed?” 

“Pssh, _no,”_ she said, rolling her eyes. “I either carry things two-handed or I carry things _no-handed.”_

She motioned to her crutches next to her with a look on her face clearly meant to convey, _“DUH.”_

”You never use just one?”

Annie shook her head, the look on her face something between horror and offense.

”I’ve tried sometimes at home just to see what it’s like,” she said with a small grimace. “But I do _not_ like it and I don’t know why Momma does.”

Then, she paused to think again.

“You could ask Momma how to carry things one-handed. She carries everything one-handed. Including Charlie, who she carries like this.” Annie curled her left arm in, resting her hand on her side, like she was carrying something underneath it. “But that’s just because that’s how Charlie likes to be carried.”

“Charlie’s weird, too,” Romano remarked. “And, again, I can say that because she’s not twelve.”

“Well, _yeah._ I agree with _that_ one,” Annie said, rolling her eyes again.

Romano gave her a small smirk. 

“So, how do you carry things ‘no-handed?’” 

“Usually with a bag or a backpack,” Annie answered. “Or I carry them on my head.”

“On your head?”

Annie nodded enthusiastically. Romano nodded in reply, albeit far _less_ enthusiastically. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

And keep it in mind he did. That was why, a couple hours after his conversation with Annie, he glanced around an empty hallway and tried balancing his notebook on the top of his (bald) head. 

“Robert, what on earth are you doing?”

Romano jolted in surprise as he realized he happened to be standing in front of the open door to the Chief of Staff’s office. He caught the notebook and then quickly tucked it in his pocket before feigning ignorance as Kerry crossed her office towards the hallway.

“What are you talking about?” he asked as she drew even with the doorframe.

“It looked like you were trying to balance a notebook on your head,” she said, before narrowing her eyes. “Have you been talking to my daughter?”

“What? Why would you think that?” Romano asked quickly. 

“Just that that’s her preferred method of carrying things,” Kerry replied with a shrug. 

Romano made like he was just going to play it off and make his escape, but he waited too long to decide and eventually gave in with a sigh. 

“Yeah, I was,” he admitted. “She was downstairs waiting on Susan. And I was _trying_ to do my work, but she kept asking me questions.”

Kerry shrugged in acknowledgement. 

“Yes. That’s what she does.”

Romano nodded and then shifted uncomfortably. 

“She actually suggested that I ask you…” he said slowly, avoiding Kerry’s gaze. “...If you knew any disabled surgeons I could talk to.”

Kerry’s brow furrowed. 

“She told you to ask me that?”

“She said you knew a lot of people and may know somebody.” When Kerry raised her brow and then paused for a long moment, he raised his good hand defensively and started backing up. “You know what? Forget it. Clearly, it was a bad idea-”

“No, no. I apologize. I was just thinking,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “I, uh… I don’t know anyone off-hand. But I could send out a couple emails. Put some feelers out if you’d like.”

Romano gave such a tiny nod that Kerry almost missed it. 

“I’d appreciate that,” he replied in an equally tiny voice. “I want to practice again. I just… I just don’t know how.”

Kerry gave him a knowing nod, which he returned with a nod of thanks.

He rubbed the back of his (bald) head with a hand.

“She was also lecturing me on the ADA,” he informed her in a tone of seeming annoyance (though it was also clearly a grateful one, too). “Telling me about ‘the rights to the -ations.’ Participation, accommodation, and protection from discrimination. ‘The -ations.’”

Kerry was nearly beaming with pride. She raised an eyebrow. 

“Did she tell you it was signed on her birthday?”

“Yeah, and, frankly, Kerry, that’s kind of an odd thing to celebrate.”

“Yes and no,” Kerry said (a tad defensively). “Though, when we say it was signed on her birthday, we do mean the actual day of her birth.”

Romano’s brow furrowed in a look of sincere surprise.

“Really?”

“Mm-hmm,” Kerry confirmed, nodding. “I was still loopy on painkillers when I watched the news report. Thought I was hallucinating.”

This only served to make Romano look even more confused. 

“But if it was signed the day she was born, then-”

“It’s not a very old law, is it?” Kerry asked rhetorically. When Romano gave a nod of acknowledgement, she said, “It’s a good reminder. To be grateful for what we have… while also not getting complacent as there’s a lot still to do.”

Kerry watched as Romano thought on this. She tapped at the door frame with her fingers for a moment and inhaled deeply. 

“You know, Robert, it’s actually a good thing I have you here,” she said, her tone switching from her more casual tone to her usual professional one. 

She turned and started back for her desk, waving for him to follow her. He did so, but chose to linger close to the door, still apparently waiting for his opportunity of egress.

“I just read a very interesting article that may interest you. On the future of surgery,” she explained as she set her crutch against the desk and sat down. “According to it, the future of surgery lies in robotics. 

“It makes sense, honestly. I mean, laparoscopic procedures have shown for years to significantly cut down on patient recovery times as well as risk of infection and readmission. And, I know that County has not invested much in it in the past, but, apparently, when you close the hospital for two weeks, suddenly your quarterly expenditure looks much, _much_ better. Meaning we may have some flexibility in the budget.

“The article said, though, that even the hospitals that can afford the equipment have a hard time finding the people to run it.”

“You mean like engineers?” Romano asked, frowning slightly. 

“The surgeons,” Kerry answered. “According to this, the ideal operators have the skill and expertise of the most experienced surgeons and the dexterity of today’s most prolific video game players. Meaning that the older surgeons with the experience don’t want to learn how and the younger surgeons that do don’t have the skills yet to be successful.”

Kerry paused for a reaction from her Chief of Surgery, but when none came, she just shrugged. 

“I just thought it was interesting,” she acknowledged. “Something to think about.”

Kerry continued trying to gauge his reaction for a moment, but he moved like he was about to walk out. Figuring their conversation was over, she replaced her glasses on her nose and turned her attention back to the notes on her desk.

“They wouldn’t have any trainings on how to use the new equipment, would they?”

Kerry glanced up over the rim of her glasses. 

“As a matter of fact, they do. A couple conferences.” She shuffled some of the papers on her desk looking for the journal she’d read the article in. “Yes, a couple conferences. And they offer CME, meaning if someone from Surgery was interested in attending one, you could pay for it out of the Continuing Ed budget.”

Romano nodded for a moment, but not absently like Kerry had initially thought. More like he was contemplating something carefully.

“And if someone _were_ trained,” he continued, clearly thinking out loud, “you’d be willing to look into getting the equipment?”

“I wouldn’t even think about getting any bids unless I knew there was someone qualified to use it,” Kerry replied sincerely. 

Romano nodded again and then turned to leave. But as soon as he stepped out the door, he paused and turned back, grimacing. 

“One more question.”

“Hmmm?”

“You don’t know if…” He sighed. “You don’t happen to know if any of the controllers could be operated one-handed, do you?”

Kerry shook her head. 

“Now, that I don’t know,” she confessed. “To be honest, the last time I watched someone play a video game that wasn’t on one of those Gameboy things my children fight over was on a Pacman machine in a pizza joint near my house in 1978. And I’m fairly certain they’ve come a long way from joysticks since then.”

Romano nodded defeatedly before starting to turn away again. But in doing so, he didn’t see the smirk growing on Kerry’s face.

“However,” she said, stopping him in his tracks. “If _you’re_ the one interested in learning, I’d suggest that you talk to the ADA Coordinator in HR. She’s very well-versed in the latest in adaptive technology.”

Romano turned back to look at her, a look of confusion on his face. 

“Since when does County have an ADA Coordinator?” 

“Since they hired a Chief of Staff that requires one,” Kerry replied with a shrug. “Her name is Naomi Wilkinson. And I suggest that if you want to make an appointment, you do so sooner rather than later, as her office hours fill up pretty fast.”

“You’re kidding.”

Kerry’s smirk grew. She shook her head again. 

“There’s a lot of disabled people that work for this hospital, Robert,” she informed him simply. “Most of them just aren’t nearly as visible as you or me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It felt nice to finally sit down and crank this chapter out. I've had completely written out in my head for months now, so I'm pleased to finally get to share it with all of it. 
> 
> This chapter seeks to fulfill a couple things I think we could have used more of in S9 and also S10 onwards. One is that there really should have been a conversation between Kerry and Romano about being a disabled doctor. But alas, it's kind of like the whole Kerry-and-Lizzie's-friendship-thing I mentioned in my note on the last chapter. By S9, the _ER_ writers kind of forgot that Kerry has moments where she proves she deeply cares about her colleagues. We get a bit of that with Susan (which is the only time I can prove on-screen that they hugged), but I think it would have been a lot more poignant to have a moment with Romano. I did one scene in the "uc" universe in the chapter ["The Club"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216501/chapters/54159049) in _A Forest of Trees_ , but I stopped short of actually giving Romano an alternative.
> 
> That was the second thing I thought S9/S10 lacked. I know that TV dramas live for, well, the drama, but I think they needed a little bit more closure on that subject that _didn't_ involve anymore incidents with the helicopter. That's part of why I think there should have been a covnersation between Kerry and Romano. She's clearly well-versed in disability law and it's assumed participates (to a certain degree) in disability activism, so I feel like she'd be the first person to stand up and say 'This isn't a career ending injury. We can figure something else out.' Even if it was used to further her own goals somehow, I feel like it would have been in character. 
> 
> I also think we should have seen more of Kerry Weaver being a good Chief of Staff. Her rise to power as well as her _fall_ from pwer in the show was under such crazy circumstances that I feel like we missed the chance to see her just be good at her job as a hospital administrator without it going wrong. Sometimes, people can just be good at their jobs. I think that the writers always verged a little too much into "This is purely ambition and means nothing more to her than to advance her career" as opposed to "She is very passionate about this and has worked to qualify herself to be in this position in order to best satisify the requirements of the job. And also this is ambition."
> 
> Maybe I'm reading too much of myself into the character, but I just think that she would do a good job at it, okay? And by her, I mean me. Sort of. I'm kidding. (Or am I?)
> 
> Also, quick shoutout to my own Momma for inspiring both the "You must look for it before you come ask me for help finding it" and the "I am going to make you memorize the core tenets of certain laws to recite when we go vote" parts of this chapter. She did not make us memorize _that many_ Amendments, but has remarked that, looking back, she should have as the ones she did make us memorize lacked in intersectional application. 
> 
> That's it for tonight. I'm back to moving stuff tomorrow night, so there's likely going to be another delay. But then I'll be finished with that and also with my summer class, so it should be smooth sailing to the end of this story! Which is sadly coming very soon :( But there's still plenty in store, which I'm reminding myself just as much as I am assuring you. 
> 
> Have a good rest of your night and/or day! Until next time.


	46. The Year of the Child

Susan had grown so accustomed to gatherings of family indicating some kind of tragedy as of late that when she walked into the living room and saw not just Kerry and the girls but also Michael and Adam, her heart nearly stopped. And the way Annie was pacing back and forth between the couches certainly didn’t help alleviate any of her worry.

“Oh no,” Susan said, her eyes widening as she looked from Annie to the adults. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Kerry, Michael, and Adam exchanged glances and then gave shrugs of confusion.

“We’re, uh… We’re not sure,” Adam told her, his arms folded across his chest. 

“Yeah, we just came over because we got a call from the temple earlier,” Michael explained, “to let us know that they’d scheduled Annie’s Bat Mitzvah. Saturday July 26th. The morning of her thirteenth birthday.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good,” Susan said with a sigh of relief. Then, she looked at Michael and Adam, frowning slightly. “That’s good, right?”

“It’s great!” Michael agreed emphatically. “But when we told her that, this happened.”

He motioned to Annie’s pacing, which did not slow even a little at Susan’s arrival. 

On the opposite couch, Charlie sucked her thumb from atop her perch on Suzie’s lap. She, Suzie, and her stuffed panda Coco (currently situated on top of her head) all watched Annie with concern. 

Susan stepped into the path of the pacing. Annie, focused on the floor, came to a halt when she saw Susan’s feet in front of her.

She looked up.

“Please move.”

“Please stop.”

Annie didn’t bother to try and step around her and instead just stepped back. But though the pacing had stopped, it did nothing to change the worried look on her face.

“She won’t tell us what’s wrong,” Kerry informed Susan. 

“Nothing’s _wrong,”_ Annie said quickly. “It’s just… It’s _real_ now. Like… Like it’s actually going to happen, which means I have to be ready, which means I have to start studying. What if I’m not ready?”

“Annie, honey, it’s _January,”_ Kerry assured her. “You have until July. If you don’t feel ready now, you still have six months to prepare.”

“And, honestly, kiddo, you’re more prepared than most kids are the day of,” Michael added. “And, remember, it’s a _mitzvah._ It’s a _celebration._ Not a test. We want you to be ready, but it’s not like if you don’t get everything perfect that G-d’s going to get mad at you.”

“Are you _sure?”_ Annie asked, panic clear in her voice. 

“If you’re putting in the effort to do what you’re supposed to do, then I think He would be pleased,” Michael replied. “And if you’re really worried about it, you can talk to Rabbi Ed on Friday night.”

This appeared to reassure Annie somewhat, but not enough. 

“I think Rabbi Ed would probably tell you the same thing your father did,” Adam chimed in. “It’s a celebration. And we don’t want you to lose the excitement and celebration part of it.”

“Can we go back for a second?” Susan said, frowning. She looked at Annie. “Did you say you have to _start_ studying?”

“Yeah,” Annie said, her brow furrowing as she nodded. “Because I have to read the Torah in front of people.”

“Okay. I get that,” Susan said slowly. “But I’m confused by the word ‘start.’ Because that implies that whatever you’ve been doing so far does not count as studying… In which case, what on earth does you studying look like?”

“Exactly. She _has_ been studying,” Kerry agreed. “She went to camp last year. She’s going to the extra classes. She’s doing her work at home.”

“And she’s been going to shul for at _least_ as long as I’ve been around,” Adam chimed in.

“Which is to say that she’s been doing everything she’s supposed to do,” Michael finished, nodding. He raised his eyebrows at Annie. “Right, kiddo?”

Annie gave a half-committal shrug. 

“And, again, we just want to remind you: _Mitzvah,”_ MIchael continued. “Mitzvah, mitzvah, mitzvah. It’s a celebration, kiddo. A celebration of you growing up and becoming a woman.”

_“But I’m not ready to be a woman!”_

“A _Jewish_ woman, honey,” Kerry assured her gently. “A _Jewish_ woman. We’re not asking you to pay taxes.”

Beside her, Michael couldn’t help but smirk. 

“That’s a very specific example there, Kerry,” he said, trying not to crack a smile at the memory of Henry Weaver’s joke inadvertently giving Kerry a heart attack about filing taxes on the day of her eighteenth birthday.

“Oh, _hush,”_ Kerry hissed. 

“Is it that you have to stand in front of people?” Adam asked, thinking aloud. “Is it something specific? Or are you just worried?”

“Well, there’s a lot to think about,” Annie said, her brow furrowing again. “Like, should I wear a kippah? Should I _not_ wear a kippah? Do all of you come up with me or is it just Daddy and Abba? Or does it have to be just Daddy? And how am I supposed to carry the Torah no-handed?”

Knowing better than to believe all of these examples had been pulled out of thin air and were not the result of months or possibly even _years_ of consideration, the adults all exchanged solemn glances. Clearly, no matter how outwardly proud of her parents or her disability she was, they still managed to cause anxiety from time to time.

Suzie, however, was too young to comprehend and/or consider any of this, and instead felt she could offer an answer to at least the last question.

“Carry it on your head,” Suzie offered. 

_“Suzie,”_ Susan said, shooting her a look.

“What?” Suzie said innocently. “I’m helping.”

“Okay, one thing at a time,” Michael said, taking a deep breath. “First, whether or not you want to wear a kippah is up to you. Whatever you choose, it’ll be fine. 

“Second, Momma and I talked last summer, and she agreed with Rabbi Ed and I that Abba and I should be considered your Jewish parents. However, if you want all four of us up there, we can arrange for that. 

“And third, Bubbe and Zayda will be the ones who get the Torah out of the ark. They’ll pass it to Abba and I, who will pass it to you, and I can make sure that I bring it to you at the bimah so all you have to do is present it. Or we can make sure you only have to take a couple steps, so you don’t have to go too far without support. Whatever we need to do, we’ll do it. Okay?”

“It’s all going to be fine,” Adam said assuringly. “Yes, there’s a lot to think about, but we don’t need to think about all of it right now.”

“And even if it doesn’t go entirely the way it’s supposed to, it’ll all end up okay,” Kerry added, nodding in agreement. “I mean, your father nearly fell at his bar mitzvah and everything ended up fine.”

Michael, half-wondering if this was getting back at him for the tax remark, rolled his eyes.

“Thanks, Kerry.”

Kerry let out a huff before hissing, “It’s the only one I’ve been to.”

Given the way Annie’s eyes grew wide in horror, apparently Michael wasn’t the only one who took issue with the comment.

“I didn’t even _think_ about _falling.”_

“Aye yai yai.” Kerry closed her eyes and raised a hand to her forehead for a moment before looking at Michael and Adam. “How’s this: You two handle the religious stuff and we’ll plan the party. Deal?”

Michael and Adam exchanged glances, first with each other and then with Susan, before all parties nodded in agreement.

“Sounds good to us,” Michael said with a smile. “But you’ll need to make sure that there’s no-”

“No pork, no shellfish, no meat and dairy cooked in the same dish,” Kerry finished, nodding. “Michael, I’ve kept a Kosher household since 1985.”

Michael thought about this for a moment (mostly as he momentarily forgot why Kerry would have done so for five years _before_ Annie was born) and then shrugged in acknowledgement. Beside him, Adam sat forward to make eye contact with Kerry. 

“The color scheme should be ‘blue.’”

“Right. Oh, that reminds me,” she said, looking at Annie. “We need to order you blue crutches.”

Annie’s brow furrowed. 

“We do? Why? Is there a rule somewhere that I don’t know about?” she asked, growing even more panicked. _“How far behind am I?”_

“There’s not a rule about what color crutches you have to have for a bat mitzvah,” Kerry assured her. She started to shake her head only to then pause and lean over towards Michael and drop her voice. “There’s _not,_ right?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard,” he replied with a shrug.

“There’s not a rule about what color crutches you have to have for a bat mitzvah,” Kerry repeated, this time more confidently. “You _requested_ that.”

“I did?” Annie asked, frowning. “When?”

“When you were five or six? A long time ago. Because you’ve been _looking forward_ to this, honey. For a long time,” Kerry said gently. “Everything’s going to be fine. We’ve got plenty of time to get things figured out and for you to get ready. Honestly, Annie, I think you’re working yourself up over nothing.”

Susan nearly snorted at the ~~hypocrisy~~ irony at those words coming out of Kerry’s mouth. She glanced towards the couch and, in doing so, happened to make eye contact with the only other person in the world who had ever had Kerry as a wife. And, if the expression on his face and the look they exchanged with each other was any indication, clearly they were both thinking the same thing. 

“Oh, could you two _be_ anymore conspicuous?” Kerry snapped upon noticing Michael and Susan’s smirk.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael said quickly, raising his hands defensively.

“Yes, we could,” Susan replied, nodding.

Kerry shot both her ex-spouse and current spouse looks of frustration.

“I have an idea,” Adam said, sitting up and looking around. “As a way to remind Annie that this is a celebration and there is a _party_ involved, how about we start thinking about a guest list? Since we’re all here together.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Michael heartily agreed. “Can we get some paper and a pen?”

Susan pulled a notebook and a pen out of a side table drawer and passed them down before taking a seat on the couch next to Suzie and Charlie. Annie remained standing, seemingly still too anxious to sit down.

“Alright,” Adam announced, clearing his throat. “First things first: Annie. And then Kerry, Susan, Suzie, and Charlie… Michael and Adam.”

He wrote Annie’s name clearly on the top line and then began scribbling down the rest of the names, keeping couples (+/- children) on the same line.

“Bubbe and Zayda,” Kerry said. 

“Bubbe and Zayda,” Adam repeated, nodding as he added them to the list.

“And Zayda’s sister Aunt Ruth and her husband Fred,” Michael chimed in. “And their sons David and Daniel and their wives Sheila and Pauline. And both of them have sons named Ben.”

“And Bubbe’s sister Aunt Antoinette,” Annie suggested before quietly muttering, “Aunt-oinette.”

Adam and Michael nodded and added the names to the list. 

“From our side, we have Elizabeth and Ella. And Carter,” Susan thought aloud. She looked at Annie. “And maybe Rachel?”

Annie thought about it for a moment and then nodded. 

“Jeanie, Reggie, and Carlos,” Kerry said. “And probably Doug and Carol and their girls?”

Susan nodded in agreement.

“And Carmen. And Lucy. And Tonya…” Susan scoffed and shook her head. “Just put down half the ER staff and we’ll sort exactly who later.”

Michael opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something and then apparently thought better of it and waved Adam on in adding _‘Half of ER staff-TBD’_ to the list.

“Oh, and certainly Sara and Kelly and their families, right?” Kerry asked, raising her eyebrows at Annie, who perked up slightly at the mention of her best friends. “And who else? Anyone else from school or from soccer?”

Annie inhaled deeply.

“Sam, Dominique, Maria, and Patrick from school,” Annie said, thinking hard. “And we probably have to invite all the girls from soccer or else some people are going to get mad.”

At this, Annie rolled her eyes as she had two very specific girls on the team that she did _not_ want to invite, but who would inevitably start a lot of drama if she didn’t. (As middle schoolers were wont to do.)

Adam added _‘Soccer team’_ to the list. 

“And then there’s a _ton_ of families from the congregation,” he said, tapping the pen against the paper for a moment as he thought. “The Kaminskis for sure. That’s… Jan and Ewa.”

“And the Rosenbergs. That’s Craig and Diane and their sons Ben and Josh,” Michael suggested. “Oh and we can’t forget the McDaniels-”

“NO.”

Everyone turned to look at Annie, whose face had flushed nearly as red as her hair. 

“No?” Michael asked, frowning in confusion.

“No,” Annie repeated as firmly as she could with her face growing so hot. “I don’t want them to come.”

Michael and Adam frowned at her for a moment. But as Annie was focused on them, she missed the sly smirk that grew on Suzie’s face as she realized why the surname sounded so familiar. 

“Is this about _Ethan?”_ she asked, her smirk growing. 

“Shut up, Suzie,” Annie snarled, though her blush continued to deepen (which in turn deepened the smirk on her sister’s face).

“Annalise, do not tell your sister to shut up,” Kerry said firmly. 

“But she needs to,” Annie said with both sincerity and desperation in her voice. 

“Who is Ethan?” Susan asked, looking at Michael and Adam.

“He’s the oldest son of some good friends of ours. He and Annie have known each other since they were in diapers,” Michael explained before looking at Annie. “And, up until just now, I thought they were friends.”

“And, also, we’re RSVP’d to his bar mitzvah in March,” Adam remarked. “So, unless you can give us a good reason why not, he’s coming to yours.”

Annie didn’t offer an answer as she was too busy shooting Suzie dirty looks. 

“Did he say something to you, honey?” Kerry asked with concern in her voice. “Did he… _do_ something?”

“No,” Annie replied, shaking her head. “I just don’t like him.”

“I think Annie’s lying,” Suzie said in a sing-song voice. 

This earned her both another dirty look from Annie as well as a “Suzie, cut it out,” from Susan.

Michael let out a sigh and looked at Kerry. 

“We’ll send a list of names and addresses home with her the next time she’s over. Sound good?”

Kerry nodded, letting out a sigh of her own.

She stood up, leading the others to do so as well. Charlie (and Coco) climbed down off Suzie’s lap so she could follow the group’s migration towards the foyer as they walked Michael and Adam out. 

“Remember, kiddo: Mitzvah,” Michael said, pausing at the door and putting a hand down on Annie’s head. “Mitzvah, mitzvah, mitzvah.”

Annie nodded. He lifted his hand from her head and pulled her into a hug. When he pulled away, he kissed her on the forehead before stepping aside to let Adam do the same. 

Once they’d pulled the door shut behind them, the family dispersed in different directions. Susan went upstairs to change, Kerry headed for the kitchen to start on dinner, and Charlie ran off towards the fort she’d built with Suzie under the table earlier that afternoon.

Suzie started to follow her, but Annie growled a _“Come back here,”_ and yanked her back around. 

“How did you even know about Ethan?” Annie asked in a low voice.

Suzie smirk returned en force.

“I heard you and your friends talking about him when they spent the night.”

“You were _spying_ _on us?”_ Annie asked, her jaw clenching.

“No,” Suzie said, shaking her head. “You had your door open and you were _talking very loud.”_

Annie let out a huff and crossed her arms. 

“Well, it doesn’t even matter, because I don’t like him,” she stated firmly. 

“Really?” Suzie asked, her smirk growing into a mischievous smile.

“Yeah, really,” Annie replied, raising her eyebrows.

Suzie leaned forward towards her and dropped her voice to a whisper. 

“Then why is your face all red?” She grinned broadly. “Your face is as red as Momma’s gets when she sees Mommy in a dress.”

The imagery of exactly how crimson Kerry’s face got whenever Susan got dressed up combined with the growing flush in her own cheeks to fuel Annie’s anger.

“I am going to kill you,” she said through gritted teeth.

But the threat only proved encouraging, as Suzie happily shook her head and then drew in a deep breath. 

_“MOMMA,”_ she shouted. _“Annie says she’s gonna kill me.”_

_“Annalise, knock it off.”_

Kerry stepped out of the kitchen and looked towards where the two sisters stood in the foyer.

“But… But…” Annie said, motioning towards Suzie.

“No buts. I don’t want to hear it,” Kerry said firmly, holding up a finger at her. Then, she sighed and lowered it. “I get that you’re worried, honey. I understand that. But that does _not_ give you permission to tell your sister you’re going to kill her. You know better than that.”

She raised a finger at her eldest daughter once more to make her point, before stepping back into the kitchen. 

For a moment, Annie stared after her before turning back to Suzie. 

“Now, I _have_ to kill you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I came up with that last part, all I could think of was that one tumblr post that was like "Eldest sisters need to unionize." And as an eldest sister... yeah. It's like ride-or-die-but-I-will-also- _make-_ you-die sort of thing. (Don't worry. I love my sister dearly. But she also did spend the entire first part of quarantine texting me that she was sad that she couldn't punch me because of social distancing.)
> 
> Not a whole lot to say on this one other than that Annie's bat mitzvah will be the finale of this story... which is only a few chapters away! I'm probably going to post Chapters 49 and 50 together (unless I can't help myself), which may be as soon as next weekend. I'm finally done with moving stuff _and_ my summer course, so I've got a lot of time this weekend to sleep and to write.
> 
> Hope you guys are staying well and safe. Until next time!


	47. Issues of Morality

Susan heard a familiar (and comforting) clicking sound approaching the desk and glanced up from the chart she was reviewing.

She always enjoyed whenever Kerry tried to act nonchalant about something. Sometimes she did so convincingly, but most of the time, she most definitely did  _ not. _ And today was one of the days that she most definitely did not. 

As soon as she drew even with the desk, Susan quirked an eyebrow.

“Who paged you?” 

Kerry frowned in confusion.

“What are you talking about? Nobody paged me.”

“Who paged you?” Susan repeated, enunciating each word separately.

“Nobody paged me,” Kerry replied defensively. “I just had a break in between meetings and thought I should come down to see if you needed any help.”

“Uh-huh. And your coming down has  _ nothing _ to do with our VIP patient?”

“VIP patient? We should not have any VIP patients. We should be treating every patient the same, regardless of who they are or where they come from,” Kerry said in her usual (and almost convincing) air of haughtiness.

Susan nodded slowly, narrowing her eyes. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk. 

_ “Who paged you?” _

“Nobody paged me!” Kerry replied sincerely. “I just came down to see if… I figured that it could be busy… You know, you’re usually  _ much _ happier to see me when I come down here.”

“Keep spinning, Annie,” Susan said, giving Kerry a look. “You’re going to tell me the truth eventually.”

Kerry frowned at the comparison to Annie’s habit of deflecting or rambling when put on the spot regarding accusations of wrongdoing. But, given how  _ accurate _ the comparison was in this case, she gave in with a sigh.

“Alright, fine,” Kerry conceded. “I get email notifications from the  _ Tribune, _ and one of them said he was coming here. I figured I had to come down and at least say hello to him or else the Board would interrogate me as to why I hadn’t.”

“You could just tell them that he was here as a patient and not as a city official,” Susan suggested. “Hell, you could even go back upstairs and just pretend you didn’t even know.”

Kerry gave her a look of exasperation, but Susan had the feeling it wasn’t just her duty as Chief of Staff that led her downstairs to introduce herself to Alderman John Bright, who had been rushed to County after a fall at a public event.

“Well, he’s my patient. So, if you want to talk to him, there are going to be rules.”

“Okay,” Kerry said, stopping short of letting out a huff.

“First, if you go in there, you’re taking his chart with you.” Susan gave a small shrug.“He’s got a knee sprain from falling, but he’s reported a couple other things that were a little unusual, so I ran some tests. I already know what it is, butI’m just waiting on the lab to confirm it.”

Susan made to hand the clipboard to Kerry, but pulled it back before Kerry could take it. She eyed Kerry closely, which led to another look of exasperation.

“You are not allowed to ask him for more money.”

Kerry rolled her eyes. 

“I will not.”

Susan made to hand it to her again, only to pull it back once more. Her eyebrows rose again. 

“You are not allowed to debate healthcare policy with him.”

“I will  _ not.” _

Satisfied, Susan held out the chart a third time. She was going to pull it back again (this time just to mess with her), but Kerry snatched it away before she could.

She glanced up at the board to determine where Alderman Bright was currently located before turning away from the desk. 

He’d been moved to one of the exam rooms for more privacy. When she pulled the curtain back to step behind it, he smiled as brightly as his name would suggest. 

“Hello, Alderman. My name is Dr. Weaver. I’m an associate of Dr. Lewis, who has been treating you.”

“Wonderful. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He offered a hand to shake. When she did, he narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Hang on. I know you,” he said slowly as she released the greeting. “You’re in charge around here, aren’t you?”

Kerry pulled herself to full height, though she couldn’t be sure if it was out of pride or at being recognized so easily (and, hence, her ploy to get a chance to talk to him getting figured out so easily). 

“Yes, I am,” she confirmed. “I’m the Chief of Staff.”

“I thought so. You’ve come to several of our meetings,” he said, nodding slowly in recognition. “You always sit on the floor in the row against the wall, fourth seat from the center on the… left-hand side. Well, my left. Your right.”

Kerry raised her eyebrows, impressed, before taking a seat on the tall stool nearby. 

“I, uh, I was not aware I did that,” she lied. 

“It’s funny how we’re creatures of habit, isn’t it?” he mused. 

(Or, rather, that was the accessible seating area and she had the tendency to flash people dangerous looks for daring to sit in her seat.)

“You’ve testified in front of us a couple times, too, haven’t you?” he asked as he tried to think back. 

“Yes, I have,” Kerry confirmed. “Twice, I think. Once for each of the last two biennial budgets.”

“Ah, yes,” the Alderman said, nodding in recollection. “I’ve been meaning to come visit County for a long time, because I remember always being so  _ impressed _ with all that you’re doing down here. Saving all that money with the free clinic and then all you’re doing to address trauma at your institute upstairs. It’s just… It’s just remarkable. And, unfortunately, so  _ necessary _ for our friends and neighbors in this city.”

At the way Kerry had to fight off a chuckle, the Alderman gave a small smile.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” she replied, waving him away. “Just, uh… Just spoken like a true politician.”

The Alderman chuckled along with her and then gave a shrug of acknowledgement. 

“Well, when you’ve been around them as long as I have, you tend to pick up a few things,” he said candidly. “I remember my first job out of college. I was a page in Congress. Over in DC. 

“I was 22 and hungover everyday. And I remember listening to the Congressman that I worked for talk and thinking, ‘God, I am  _ never _ going to sound like him.’ But, here I am thirty years later.”

He gave another shrug, which made Kerry smile. 

“Well, since you brought it up,” she began. “I should just say that, as proud as we are of the clinic, it should not exist. It’s 2003. It is  _ far _ past the time for there to be equitable and accessible healthcare for all in this country. People should not rely on emergency departments solely because they are the only place that will treat them regardless of their insurance status. And while I’m happy to discuss all that the free clinic has accomplished in it’s nearly five years of existence, saving money for the department and the county is far from the most important reason it exists.”

The Alderman nodded sincerely at her (clearly prepared) remarks. 

“I agree with you wholeheartedly, Dr. Weaver,” he said in an equally sincere tone. “Though, I will just point out that that is  _ a bit _ above my pay grade.”

Kerry was ready to argue that, as a member of City Council, it was  _ not _ above his pay grade. But she stopped herself as she remembered the word ‘City’ and how much of her argument was better heard at a state or federal level.

“Of course. My apologies.”

“Oh, no need to apologize,” he assured her. “You’re just making sure to hit your talking points.”

A faint blush crept into Kerry’s cheeks as, once again, she felt the Alderman had figured her out. She had, in fact, pulled out her list of ‘Talking Points with Elected Officials’ to review prior to coming down to the ER.

“Don’t feel bad. It’s nothing to feel guilty about. We all do it,” the Alderman said quickly as he noticed the look on her face. “And, to be honest, unless County General employs a lobbyist, as the Chief of Staff, that job falls to you.”

Kerry gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

“We did,” she admitted, “but I didn’t think he was worth the money.”

The Alderman glanced around, as if checking to be sure he wasn’t being overheard, before leaning forwards towards her and dropping his voice.

“Between you and me, most of them aren’t,” he whispered before sitting up. “Not to say I have anything against lobbyists. Campaign finance law is pretty transparent. I can be honest. I’ve got a lot of friends who are lobbyists. 

“But the thing is that you can always tell the difference between a lobbyist and an  _ advocate. _ Because a lobbyist is a marketer. They’re there to sell you on something. An advocate, though, is there because they are passionate about their topic and wants to do something about it.”

Kerry let out a small sigh of relief and then smiled. 

“Well, in that case, let me know if you’re interested in hearing about my thoughts on neighborhood revitalization as a matter of public health or the importance of providing prescription benefits to Medicare beneficiaries.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’d be very interested in that,” he said with seemingly genuine enthusiasm. “You could probably explain it far better than many others could. 

Before Kerry could reply that she probably could (with just the right amount of smugness in her voice), Susan poked her head in. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said to the Alderman, “but I need to borrow Dr. Weaver for a moment.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, waving Susan away. Then, he raised a finger towards Kerry. “But I’m serious. I’d like to hear your thoughts on Medicare when you’re finished.”

Kerry nodded before rising from her stool and stepping out of the curtain to join Susan. 

She was standing a few feet away, smirking slightly. 

“Are you having fun?” she asked quietly. 

“Yes, actually. I am,” Kerry said with a glance back towards the curtain. “He’s very nice to talk to. A good conversationalist.”

“Yeah, but remember: He’s a politician. He  _ has _ to be.”

Kerry conceded the point with a shrug. Susan pumped her eyebrows before stepping closer to Kerry and dropping her voice even further. 

“I’ll be honest, though. I expected to come hear you kissing his ass. Not the other way around.”

Kerry frowned but also sort of preened a little, as if pleased with herself that the Alderman could be sucking up  _ to _ her (when she had, as Susan correctly pointed out, been sucking up a bit to him).

“You think he’s kissing my ass?”

“Kerry, he just said he wants to hear more of your thoughts on Medicare,” Susan pointed out flatly. 

As expected, Kerry let out a huff.

“Just because  _ you _ don’t want to hear that doesn’t mean  _ nobody _ does,” she said quickly. 

Susan just rolled her eyes. 

“Yes, dear,” she said with a sigh.  _ “Anyways, _ I just got his test results back. And it’s something I doubt he wants to talk about.”

She handed Kerry the paper in her hand. Kerry scanned down the list of lab results. 

For a moment, she couldn’t tell what Susan was talking about. Then, she saw the one  _ Positive _ on the list and winced.

“Syphilis?”

“Mm-hmm,” Susan said, nodding. “I figured based on his symptoms, but I wanted to make sure before I said anything.”

Kerry nodded. 

“And since you have his chart,” Susan continued, a smirk growing on her face. “I’m going to let you tell him.”

Kerry nodded again, this time with great reluctance.

“You know what this means, right?” Susan asked, raising her eyebrows. “As in, you know what you have to do?”

They both knew by Kerry’s grimace that she knew what Susan was suggesting. 

Venereal diseases like syphilis had to be reported to the public health department in order to prevent large outbreaks. 

“I’d suggest that you give your whole spiel that ‘The privatization of Medicare Part C plans, also known as Medicare + Choice plans, has locked many older Americans and disabled individuals out of necessary health benefits not covered under traditional Medicare, such as vision, dental, and most importantly, prescription benefits. Expansion of prescription benefits is vital, given that cost-related medication nonadherence is one of the highest driving factors in healthcare utilization costs and preventable hospital admissions.’”

At the sight of Kerry’s thoroughly shocked expression at her reciting Kerry’s ‘Support Part D for Drugs’ spiel word-for-word, Susan rolled her eyes again.

“You say it in your  _ sleep.” _

Kerry narrowed her eyes (though she couldn’t necessarily argue this without further proof) and then stepped back behind the curtain. 

“Oh, no,” he said in concern. “You never want to see your doctor make  _ that _ face.”

Kerry resumed her seat on the stool. She clipped the paper that Susan had given her to the chart. 

“We got your lab results back,” Kerry began slowly. “And it appears that, aside from the knee injury you sustained from the fall, you also have syphilis.”

The Alderman closed his eyes. 

“I was afraid you were going to say something like that.”

“The good news is that it is treatable,” Kerry informed him in what she hoped was an encouraging tone. I do recommend that your wife gets tested as well.”

The Alderman grimaced. 

“My wife and I have not had sex in six months.”

“Ah, I see,” Kerry said, nodding. “In that case, any partners you have been seeing more recently should also get tested.”

He closed his eyes once more and raised a hand to his forehead. Kerry shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“As well,” she continued, albeit more hesitantly. “By law, positive cases for syphilis must be reported to the public health department for contact tracing.”

The Alderman inhaled deeply. 

“And there’s… There’s no way around that, is there?”

“I’m afraid not,” Kerry replied, shaking her head. “However, I can assure you that, though I have to make the report, it is still protected by the highest of healthcare privacy laws. We report the absolute minimum amount of information required. Nothing more.”

“Yes, but, funnily enough, privacy laws don’t seem to apply much when you’re a public figure.” 

“I’m sorry, sir. But my hands are tied.”

“I understand that, Dr. Weaver,” the Alderman stated. “But you have to understand, if it gets out there, then I’m ruined. I’m running a tough primary this spring. If my opponent gets wind of this, then I’m done for.”

Kerry was sure that whatever she said now would be the wrong thing, either for her rapport with him or for her career. The best she could manage was another assurance that she’d report only what was necessary before rising from her stool. 

As she raised a hand to pull the curtain back, the Alderman stroked a hand across his chin. 

“It’s a shame, really. All the good work that County has been doing,” he thought aloud. “It would be terrible for all that good work to go away…”

His eyes flicked towards her. She had stopped, clearly listening. Then, she turned, observing him with great suspicion. 

“Are you threatening me?” 

“Oh, no not at all,” he replied quickly. “I just meant that… Well, you know that I have been a staunch supporter of County for years. I just meant that my opponent, well… let’s just say that healthcare has never been his primary issue.”

“Alderman, do you know  _ why _ we have to report this to public health?” Kerry asked, unable to stop herself. “Because if one person gives it to another, that person could then turn around and pass it on to one or two or  _ ten _ more people, who can then, in turn, pass it to others. 

“Just last summer, this emergency department successfully prevented an international pandemic by working with public health to stop the spread of a highly communicable disease. This department saved lives. By asking me  _ not _ to report this, you are putting your constituents' lives in danger. Because although syphilis is treatable, it is still nothing to mess around with.”

“But that would only be true if we were seeing other people, which I can assure you we are not,” the Alderman maintained. “I can promise you that.”

Kerry squeezed the grip of her crutch, as if that would stop her from saying what she wanted to. (It did not.)

“I’ve heard that hundreds of times from hundreds of patients. And, with all due respect, Alderman, I don’t trust your promise anymore than I do theirs.” She straightened up. “Unless you have allergies to penicillins, I will arrange for a nurse to give you an antibiotic shot and then we can discharge.”

Again, she turned to open the curtain. He sat up in a panic.

“Alright, alright, fine,” he blurted out. “Report me if you must, but keep them out of it.”

“I am only obligated to report your test results,” Kerry replied simply. “The public health department will be responsible for contacting any possible partners.”

Though still not satisfied that she insisted on reporting him, he sat back, relieved at least a little bit. He rubbed his hands over his face. 

“It’s likely my fault anyways,” he said, his voice slightly muffled through his fingers. “I don’t want him to have to suffer for it.”

Kerry, who had readied herself to once more attempt an exit, paused at the use of the pronoun. The Alderman did, too. 

He dragged his fingers down to his chin and then glanced up at her, as if trying to figure out whether or not she’d caught it. It was clear from her raised brow and look of surprise that she had, which led him to pinch the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut.

“He’s a young lawyer from my office,” he admitted quietly. “A good man. With a promising career ahead of him. I would… I would do anything to make sure this doesn’t hurt him the way it will me.”

“Then, I suggest you make sure he gets tested and treated,” Kerry said. “If you really don’t want him to get hurt over this.”

To her surprise, the Alderman nodded. Then, he cocked his head slightly and looked up at her.

“Before you go do what you have to do,” he said in a voice clear with (manipulative) desperation, “just tell me - Would it have made a difference if I hadn’t let slip he was a man?”

Kerry’s mouth fell open in shock. She observed him for a moment before professionalism led her to shake her head quickly to snap herself out of it. 

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, still visibly stunned. “But did you just imply that I’m homophobic for refusing to break the law for you?”

The Alderman raised his hands defensively.

“Oh, no, no. I would never say that in such frank of terms,” he said (agreeing with her statement). “It’s just that… Well, we all have our biases, implicit and explicit. And, sometimes, even the most seemingly  _ open-minded _ of individuals aren’t supportive of that.”

Kerry just stared at him for a long moment.

“I assure you,” she said in as earnest a tone as she could muster, “if I come across as homophobic in any way, it’s something I want to address. And something I will be sure to bring up with my wife when I get home.”

The look of hopelessness he’d assumed as a last act of desperate manipulation vanished immediately. 

“Your what?”

“My wife,” Kerry repeated, before her brow furrowed. “Or should I not say that, seeing as neither the state of Illinois nor the federal government actually permit me to marry her? What would you prefer I say? ‘Girlfriend?’ ‘Partner?’

“Or, perhaps, if I can’t talk to her, I should address it with my ex-husband. I’ll see him and  _ his _ husband when I drop off my daughter tomorrow night. Maybe I can bring it up with them and see what they have to say.”

The Alderman’s shoulders drooped in defeat. 

“There’s  _ nothing _ I can do to get you to change your mind?”

“Absolutely not,” Kerry replied firmly. “I’m beholden to the law, I am beholden to the health of this community, and I’m beholden to a twelve-year-old who is going to ask me why I vote the way I do when I take her to the polls with me later this year.

“And to be perfectly honest, Alderman, any elected official willing to put even  _ one _ of their constituents’ health at risk for a reason they themselves can personally prevent shouldn’t be in the office in the first place. But luckily for you, I’m also beholden to doctor-patient confidentiality, and while that doesn’t prevent me from reporting this, it  _ does _ prevent me from reporting that.”

And with that, Kerry made her way out of the curtain and out of the room into the hall. 

But before she started for the desk, she paused against the wall. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, praying to whoever was listening that she didn’t just lose her job over this. 

“How’d it go?”

Kerry picked her head up to see Susan coming towards her, skinning off a pair of gloves and tossing them in a trashcan nearby.

“I’m going to say right now,” Kerry said, frustration rising in her voice, “that I have every single budget document from the last five years downloaded on my computer upstairs as well as a carefully organized spreadsheet with every budget amendment, organized by line item and the person who introduced it. If he pulls any shit, I will end his career.”

Susan blinked. 

“All I did was tell you to give him lab results,” she said, motioning towards the exam room Kerry had just walked out of. 

“Well, he didn’t take it well.” 

“So, now you’re going to end his career,” Susan said, frowning in confusion. 

“Only if he tries to end mine,” Kerry snapped. 

This only served to confuse Susan even more. 

“You two were getting along a second ago. You’re telling me you turned on him  _ that quickly?” _ Susan asked in disbelief. “What are you - Charlie learning her sisters have a cheese stick and she doesn’t?”

“All I can say,” Kerry said with a huff, “is that he asked me several questions, all of which I said ‘no’ to.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Kerry?” Susan said with a scoff.

“I just said I can’t say.”

Susan threw up her hands. 

“Can you  _ at least _ tell me if you just made my life a lot harder?” she said, once again indicating to the exam room. 

“Not intentionally.”

“But that’s still a yes,” Susan concluded. “You know what, Kerry? You’re right. I am always happy to see you when you come down. Now, go back upstairs before you make me even  _ happier.” _

“I was already planning on it,” Kerry informed her tersely before spinning on her heel in the direction of the elevators. 

Susan put her hands on her hips and looked at the ceiling, performing her monthly (or weekly or sometimes even  _ hourly) _ ritual, reminding herself that she loved Kerry deeply and would regret strangling her for many reasons. 

Somebody chuckled from a few feet away. Susan looked down to see Gallant writing on a chart nearby.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, smiling. “It’s just that, whenever Dr. Weaver comes down here, there’s always a fifty-fifty chance that you two will start bickering like an old married couple.”

Susan rolled her eyes and then sighed.

“Seven years next month.”

“Of bickering?”

“Of marriage.  _ Well,  _ sort of,” Susan answered. Then, she smiled. “Also, our youngest will be three.”

Gallant stared at her for a moment. 

“Really?” he asked, his disbelief edging on incredulity. 

“Yeah. She was born mid-February,” Susan said with a shrug. “I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

“You mean the  _ scar,” _ Gallant said slowly. “Like from a Cesarean.”

Susan shot him a look.

“I said what I said,” she stated clearly. “And, also, the bickering is good. If we ever  _ stop _ bickering, that’s how you know we need to start couple’s counseling.”

“You mean that’s how you know you’re  _ in _ couple’s counseling?” he asked, unsure if he was asking out of a need for clarification or out of hope he didn’t hear her right.

“Again,” Susan said with more emphasis. “I  _ said _ what I  _ said.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was first thinking through the chapter with the Alderman, I thought, "Oh, it could be kind of interesting to play around with Susan and Kerry's canon disagreements and stuff in the context of the AU." But between many US elected officials actively killing people by voting for harmful measures or against protective ones and news that broke two weeks ago that literally half of my state's House of Representatives was funded by dark money and our (now-former) Speaker of the House was indicted by the FBI on racketeering charges, I settled on "Oh, there's no way in hell I'm going to give this man _any_ kid of sympathy for valuing his political career over his constituents' health." An unintended consequnce of COVID, I know, but one that I stand by. 
> 
> Also, it would have to be a different approach anyway, what with Susan and Kerry being in a long-term relationship as well as Kerry already having the Chief of Staff job. And, besides, I know that Kerry had to suck up some in canon as a way of preventing County from losing money, but we also missed out on a good opportunity for a Kerry Weaver Telling Off. Not only is a good telling off always on brand for her, but also, between you and me, having spoken to a great deal of local legislators, Kerry was giving him just a _little bit_ too much leway here. He's just a guy with an important job. There's probably plenty of other guys who could do the job just as well or better. 
> 
> We're down to the last three chapters! I think I was delaying writing this one a bit because it means we're just one more step closer to the end. We're going to probably go a little bit sadder with this next one before getting happier for the last two. 
> 
> Hope you're doing well! Until next time.


	48. At Wit's End

Susan looked over the display of pictures. There’s been a similar one at Mark’s funeral, but it had been much bigger. But, of course, he’d lived twice as long as her nineteen-year-old cancer patient had. Twice the lifetime meant twice the number of pictures to capture it in. 

She’d only known the young man who’d been laid to rest this morning for a few months of that rather short life. His name was Sean and the nurses had had a  _ field day _ when he confessed his love to her while loopy on morphine meant to decrease his pain. 

Susan had rolled her eyes and told them she was old enough to be his mother, but that was only marginally true. She was only marginally old enough to be  _ Annie’s  _ mother, seeing as she would have only been twenty-two when she was born, which meant she  _ really _ wasn’t old enough to be his. And, yet, she found herself feeling more for his mother than the young man she had treated.

(Nineteen didn’t sound so old when your oldest was about to turn thirteen.)

“I’m surprised you came.”

Susan tore her eyes away from the photographs documenting Sean Simmons’ life to see his mother standing a few feet away. Her arms were crossed tightly against her body, much like they had been every time she’d visited Sean in the hospital.

“He would have wanted me to,” Susan replied, unsure of what else to say. 

“Ah, yes,” his mother Jean said, nodding stiffly. “He was quite taken with you. Luckily, you’re a middle-aged lesbian, so there wasn’t any possibility of you doing anything about it.”

Though the phrase ‘middle-aged lesbian’ was a phrase used to describe one of the members of the Weaver-Lewis-Levin household, it was not one used to describe Susan and certainly not one used with such bite and revulsion.

“I am very sorry for your loss, Ms. Simmons,” Susan said in an even voice. “Your son was a very nice young man.”

“Thank you for your condolences,” Jean said with a callous smile. “They mean so much coming from a woman who encouraged him to end his life.”

Susan inhaled deeply to keep herself from letting hurt and anger fill her.

“He didn’t want to suffer,” she said in a low voice. “He was in a lot of pain and he… he just wanted it to end.”

“He could have kept fighting,” Jean said, her breathing growing shakier. “You only knew him for a short time. You didn’t know him when he was healthy. He could have taken on anything.”

“He was never going to be healthy again,” Susan replied, shaking her head as desperation seeped into her tone. “He didn’t want to keep fighting just to add a few more days before his death date.”

“He  _ could _ have been,” Jean hissed as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “His oncologist said he could have lived for a few more months if you hadn’t convinced him that his time was up.”

“What sort of life would that have been? He was tired of fighting. He just… He just wanted peace.”

Jean threw her hands up in concession. 

“Right, right. You know better, don’t you? You doctors just look at it from the outside. You see the numbers and the test results and make decisions just off of that. It would be different if you were a  _ mother.  _ Then, maybe you wouldn’t be so nonchalant about telling another person’s child that they should go ahead and die.”

“I  _ am _ a mother,” Susan replied firmly. “I have three children. And if any of them were as sick as your son was and just wanted to rest, it would be the worst thing I could endure, but I would listen to them because I love them. And the last thing I would want to do would be to force them to endure pain and misery just because  _ I’m _ not ready to let them go. Even though they are.”

Jean Simmons looked at her for a long moment before taking a deep breath. 

“Thank you for coming to show your respects,” she said in a dangerously even tone. “Now, please, let me show you the door.”

There was no doubt of Susan’s guilt over getting into an argument with a grieving mother at her son’s funeral, but as she got into her car and pulled out of the funeral home lot, her immediate concern was with the words she’d said. 

They’d been true, as far as Susan knew, but there was something else tugging at her - Had they been true  _ enough? _

Had it really been Sean she’d been talking about when her emotions overtook her or had she been talking about someone else who had been tired of fighting? Someone who still had a lot to live for, but was in so much pain with no hope of getting better?

She blinked, trying to get the questions and the guilt out of her head.

She was standing in the ER. She hadn’t even processed where she was going. She’d just started driving and County General, gravitational center of her universe, had pulled her in against her will. 

Why? Why  _ here? _ Why  _ now? _ Why couldn’t she escape  _ just for a little while? _ Why did everything always lead her back here?

Susan glanced around for a moment, but when she spotted neither of the people she wanted to see (mean redhead or tall bald one), she turned for the elevators. 

She took a few steps forwards.

“Hey, Dr. Lewis, can you take a look at my patient?” 

“Not right now, Pratt,” Susan replied, shaking her head as she continued walking. “I’m… I’m not here.”

A few more steps. 

“Hey, Susan, any word from Kerry as to whether or not that new supply contract is coming in?”

“Sorry, Tonya, I… I don’t know.”

A few more steps. The elevators were in view.

“Susan-”

“Oh, for the love of God,  _ I’m not here!” _

Susan spun on her heel, ready to tell off whoever else was trying to get her attention. But, at the sight of blonde curls and a perturbed but somehow understanding expression, she faltered.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Elizabeth replied quietly. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Susan answered honestly. “I went to a funeral this morning, so I’m… I need to go upstairs.”

Elizabeth gave a small knowing nod, releasing her to the elevators. 

But even though Susan and Elizabeth both thought Susan meant ‘upstairs to visit the Chief of Staff,’ Susan’s subconscious had other ideas. Instead of taking her to Kerry’s office, it took her to someone else’s. Though, luckily, it was someone who may be of more help.

Susan pushed open the door without knocking, choosing instead to just stare down the Latina lesbian typing at her computer. 

Carmen glanced up at her, raising her eyebrows in confused question.

“Do you have an appointment right now?” Susan asked before she could stop herself. 

“Well, if I  _ did, _ you would be interrupting it,” Carmen replied flatly. Then, she motioned at the empty chairs in front of her. “But, clearly, I do not, so, have a seat.”

Susan stepped inside the office and shut the door behind her before taking a seat in front of Carmen. Carmen saved what she was working on before turning her desktop monitor away to give Susan her full attention.

“What’s up?”

“I need you to tell me if I’m crazy.”

Carmen sucked in air. 

“Ethically, I’m not allowed to diagnose my friends or family,” she said in an apologetic tone. “No matter how accurate some of those diagnoses may be.”

“I don’t mean diagnose me,” Susan said, rolling her eyes as she shook her head. “I just mean tell me that I’m not crazy.”

“Susan, in my line of work, those two things are one in the same,” Carmen said earnestly. 

Susan closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath through her nose.

“Okay. Well, you’re the head of debriefing, right?” she asked as she opened her eyes. At Carmen’s nod, she ordered, “Then, debrief me.”

Carmen heaved a sigh and then sat up straighter in her chair. She folded her hands in front of her.

“Alright. What happened?”

Susan stared at her for a second. It appeared to Carmen as if she’d suddenly forgotten the reason for the visit, though in truth, it was because trying to voice the thought aloud drew up far more emotion than Susan had anticipated. 

“Everything,” she answered in a tiny voice. “Everything. All the time.”

“Everything has happened?” Carmen asked, raising an eyebrow. “In just the twenty-four hours since I saw you last?”

“No, I mean… I mean this year. Ever since…” Susan inhaled deeply again. “I went to a patient’s funeral this morning. It was… It was the second funeral I’ve been to in a year. And I just… I can’t keep doing this.

“There’s always  _ something. _ There’s always  _ something _ going wrong and-and-and we never get a break from it. And the one time we  _ did _ get a break? The one time in our history that the entire hospital closed and  _ forced _ us to take a break? The only reason that happened was because we  _ had _ to and we had to stop fucking  _ pandemic _ first _. _ And, as soon as we opened again, it just picked up where it left off. Like nothing ever happened. Like there was no break. It’s just… It’s just death and injury and illness all the time. And... I’m… I’m tired.”

Carmen said nothing, but rather just nodded slowly as she listened to Susan spill all that she’d been holding in. 

“I haven’t told anyone this,” Susan continued in a much quieter voice than before, “but I keep having nightmares. I have these nightmares where- You know how in dreams that there are these… these  _ truths? _ These truths that you just… you just  _ know?” _

“Yeah,” Carmen replied, nodding. 

“I keep having these nightmares where I’m in hell. And I  _ know _ I’m in hell. But… But I’m not in hell. I’m  _ here,” _ Susan explained, her voice nearly breaking with emotion and with desperation for Carmen to understand. “I’m… I’m always here and I’m watching these terrible things happen.”

“Terrible things like Valentine’s Day?” Carmen asked, observing her closely. 

“Sometimes? It’s… It’s always different,” Susan offered with a shrug. “Like… Like the time we found Mark in the bathroom, bloody on the floor. I see  _ you _ bloody on the floor. I see  _ me. _ Or I walk into Oncology like the day I learned Mark was sick. I see patients bleeding out in the trauma room. I see… I see just… just all the  _ shit _ that happens here.”

Carmen nodded slowly again. Susan sat forward, leaning on her desk, her pleading in her eyes. 

“Is it just me? Am I missing something?” she asked, scanning Carmen’s face for some sort of answer (in the case that confidentiality rules prevented her from replying). “I just… It’s never going to stop. There’s always going to be  _ something _ to deal with, and I just can’t… I just can’t keep doing this.”

Susan let out a heavy sigh and sat back in her chair, waiting for Carmen to answer. 

Carmen was quiet for a long moment. Then, to Susan’s relief, she gave her a reassuring smile.

“Well, first things first: I don’t think you’re crazy,” she said in a tone of lighthearted honesty. “Second, I don’t think it’s just you. I think you’re just the first one to come to me, and I think it makes sense as to why.”

Susan must have given her a confused (and somewhat insulted) look as Carmen raised her hands defensively. 

“Not that there’s anything wrong with being the first,” she said before folding her hands again. “What I meant was that you just happen to have experienced precipitating events that got you here first. But I wouldn’t be surprised if your colleagues reach this at some point too.”

By now, Susan’s brow deeply furrowed. Carmen just gave her a small smile.

“I asked you if your nightmares were about Valentine’s Day, because if they were about that and that alone, then I would say that you should get evaluated for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But you said that the nightmares  _ included _ that, but weren’t necessarily  _ only _ about that, which leads me to believe that you’re not experiencing PTSD; you’re burnt out.”

Susan’s expression grew even more confused. 

“Burnt out?”

“Yep. You’re burnt out.”

Carmen took a long, deep breath and then sat forward. 

“You see, I asked you whether or not the nightmares were about Valentine’s Day because that’s what I would refer to as ‘primary trauma.’ It’s a traumatic event that happened directly to you. But you said that you’ve been having nightmares of that event plus a bunch of events that didn’t happen to you. That’s called ‘secondary trauma.’ You’re experiencing traumatic stress for things that didn’t even happen to you.

“It wasn’t you that got shot or raped or hit by a car, but you work with people that were. Every single day you come to work, you deal firsthand with the worst injuries and illnesses that can happen to someone. It makes sense that eventually dealing with all of that crisis could eventually lead you to one.

“And it makes sense that  _ you _ are the first to really feel it, because not only do you have to deal with it professionally every day, you’ve also had to deal with personal stress a lot lately too. That’s what I meant when I said you had precipitating factors.  _ You _ were the one who experienced Valentine’s Day directly.  _ You _ were the one who was forced into the middle of Mark and Elizabeth while carrying the weight of Mark’s secret.  _ You _ were the one whose best friend died. That’s a lot more than the rest of us can say.”

Susan wasn’t sure if it was because Carmen was validating her feelings or simply that she had such a comforting voice, but a knot in Susan’s chest that had been wound tightly since (well before) last May began to loosen just a bit. 

“So, what…” Susan paused to breathe. “What do I do about burnout?”

“Practice self-care.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Well, according to television, it means spend a lot of money and have sex with your lover.”

Susan frowned slightly.

“So… I  _ shouldn’t _ have sex with my lover?” Susan asked in both confusion and suspicion.

“I mean, I can’t promote it as an ‘Evidence-Based’ approach, but I’m sure it couldn’t hurt,” Carmen offered with a shrug. “But really, self-care is doing the things you need to do to feel okay. Like… Okay. Pretend for a second that you’re a car.”

“I’m a car,” Susan repeated (in both confusion and suspicion).

“Yes. You’re a car. And because you are a car, you have a gas tank,” Carmen continued, not batting an eye at the look on Susan’s face. “When you practice self-care, you fill that tank up. And when that tank is full, then you feel good. Even if there are outside forces making you feel  _ not _ good, you yourself feel good. 

“So, tell me: When was the last time your tank was full? And I mean  _ full full, _ not three-quarters full where it sloshes around and makes you feel full sometimes, but not always. Full to the brim.”

“Last summer,” Susan replied without hesitation. “With Kerry and the girls. When we were on vacation.”

“When you had time off to be with your wife and kids,” Carmen said, nodding. “And you haven’t felt that your tank was truly full since?”

“I mean, being with them makes me feel better,” Susan said almost defensively. “And I try to get as much time with them as I can, but-”

“But it’s not enough to feel that same way you did,” Carmen finished.

She paused, waiting for Susan to confirm or deny the statement. 

Susan nodded. 

“So, that’s one of the things you do to practice self-care - spend time with your family,” Carmen infomed her. “Other ways are to practice hobbies that you enjoy doing or want to do more of. And then, you know, basic survival. Eating, sleeping, drinking water… All that stuff.”

Susan gave herself a moment to let the information sink in.

_ “But,” _ Carmen went on before Susan could say or clarify anything further, “there’s something else you need to consider too.”

“What’s that?” Susan asked hesitantly.

“I don’t think being with your family was the only reason that trip filled you up so much.”

Susan frowned at her for a moment, unsure of what she was talking about.

“You mean like... traveling?”

“I mean not working,” Carmen answered. “When you reach burnout, there’s two things you need to be wary of. The first is compassion fatigue. It’s like burnout on steroids, where you’re so burnt out that you literally cannot draw up any compassion or empathy or anything for people in crisis. 

“The second is working while burnt out. I would venture that most people don’t reach compassion fatigue because they quit. They just say, ‘Fuck this. I’m done,’ and leave without trying to fix or determine why they felt so shitty. And that can just set you up to do it all over again later. It’s the reason so many people spend years of their life and tens of thousands of dollars on school only to end up leaving the field after a few years.”

This time, Carmen’s brow furrowed. 

“And I’d venture too that that’s not what you want to have happen,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “I get the feeling that you  _ like _ your job and want to continue to do it. You just can’t do it right now.”

Susan considered this for a moment and then nodded, slowly at first and then faster. 

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Yeah, that’s… that’s exactly it.”

“So, I’d recommend that you figure out what to do to get a break,” Carmen suggested with a small smile. “Easier said than done, of course, but I think it’s something to consider. Because you’re  _ right. _ There’s always  _ something. _ And there always will be, because, come on. You picked the one specialty where the word ‘Emergency’ is part of the name. There’s  _ always _ going to be something, because that’s what you  _ do. _ You just need to manage your crisis now, so you can manage other people’s crises later on.”

Carmen gave her a small nod of encouragement, as if trying to get Susan to join her (or to dismiss her). 

“I think I know what to do,” Susan said after another long moment of consideration. 

“I’d hope so,” Carmen said, raising her eyebrows. “Considering I just  _ told _ you what to do. I’d hope you were listening. Otherwise, I’m going to bill you for services rendered.”

But despite her playfully serious tone, Carmen smiled when Susan rolled her eyes and rose from her chair. 

She thanked Carmen sincerely before pulling open the door and stepping out to the hall. 

As Susan started towards Kerry’s office, the knot in her chest unwound with every step she took, almost as if Carmen had clipped the string and then held onto it, ensuring it continued to loosen even after Susan left her office. 

Kerry’s assistant informed her that, yes, the Chief of Staff was in her office and, no, she was not currently meeting with anyone. But before he could peek his head in and ask whether or not the Chief of Staff was available to meet with Dr. Lewis, Dr. Lewis pushed the door open herself.

Kerry was not sitting at her desk as expected, but instead lying on the couch along the opposite wall. Her socked feet were crossed at the ankles on one of the arm rests as she read through the document in her hand, occasionally making notes in the margins. 

When she saw Susan (and the look of delight on her face), she immediately sat up, flushing deep red. But before Susan could say anything, Kerry’s expression hardened as she looked past Susan and shouted,  _ “Mr. Harris!” _

The assistant had followed Susan in, already in a panic. But, at the frustration in his boss’ voice, he offered a sheepish smile and started wringing his hands. 

“I am so sorry, ma’am. I made the mistake of telling her you weren’t in a meeting. I didn’t expect her to just walk in.” At the look both Kerry and Susan were giving him, he added in a small voice, “Maybe I should have.”

Kerry rolled her eyes and then dismissed him with a wave. Susan watched him go before turning back to Kerry, the look of delight still on her face. 

“Is this what you do when you’re alone in your office all day?” she asked, smiling broadly. 

“Not usually,” Kerry replied quickly. “I just… I didn’t feel like sitting at my desk all day.”

“Or wearing shoes?” 

She nodded towards the pair of black clogs on the floor next to the couch. Kerry’s face grew even redder (which only amused Susan more).

“I haven’t broken them in yet,” she snapped, pulling the shoes towards her to put them back. “What are you doing here?”

“You know, you’re usually a lot happier to see me when I come up here,” Susan said, narrowing her eyes at Kerry as she took a seat across from her on the couch.

“You’re very funny,” Kerry said, rolling her eyes. “What do you want?”

“Sabbatical.”

Kerry blinked. 

“What?”

“You asked what I wanted,” Susan said clearly. “I want a sabbatical.”

Kerry frowned in confusion, which led Susan to inhale deeply. She looked Kerry straight in the eye.

“You said that it was how you managed to keep Elizabeth on the payroll without actually paying her, right?” At Kerry’s replying nod, Susan said, “I want you to do that for me.”

Kerry looked at her for a moment, her brow knitting slightly in concern. 

“Is this… What is this about?”

Susan closed her eyes for a moment and then shook her head. 

“It’s about  _ everything,” _ she replied with quiet desperation in her voice. “It’s about… It’s about today and it’s about Mark and-and the smallpox scare. It’s about the fact that we can’t catch a fucking break…  _ ever. _ ”

This only served to deepen the confusion on Kerry's face.

“So, you want to take a sabbatical?” she asked, scanning Susan’s face for the rest of the information she wasn’t offering verbally.

“Yeah,” Susan replied, nodding. “Six months. A year if I can. Just… Just enough time to give me a break - a  _ real _ break. And then I’ll come back and pick up where I left off.”

At the word ‘year,’ Kerry automatically stiffened. 

“I’ll do whatever I have to do. I’ll-” Susan offered quickly before cutting herself off. “What do people  _ usually _ do when they go on sabbatical?”

“Research,” Kerry replied slowly. 

“Okay…Okay. I’ll publish a paper. I’ll publish tw- ” Susan cut herself off again, this time shaking her head. “I’m not going to offer to publish two. One’s enough. I’m not you.”

Kerry’s mouth twitched into a very brief smile before settling back into her frown, which was now just as concerned as it was confused. Susan took one of Kerry’s hands in her own and heaved a sigh.

“I’ll do whatever I have to do,” she said in a much more serious one. “I’ll publish a paper. I’ll volunteer at the clinic. I’ll raise the children. I’ll go to Egypt - Whatever I have to do to fulfill the requirements, I’ll do it.”

Kerry looked at her for a long moment. 

“Well, I’m not going to let you go on sabbatical to go to Egypt unless you take me with you,” she said with a small smile before her look on uncertainty returned. “But you’re serious?”

Susan nodded and then paused to pull her thoughts together. She squeezed Kerry’s hand.

“I’m tired of losing. I’m tired of losing without a promise of winning,” she said in a voice barely more than a whisper. “I need a break. If I… If I want to keep doing this long term, I need a break  _ now.” _

Kerry nodded very slowly and then heaved a sigh of her own.

“I’ll see what I can do. I can’t make any promises, but I… but I’ll see what I can do.”

Susan raised Kerry’s hand to her lips and kissed it before leaning forward to kiss Kerry. When they broke apart, she let her forehead rest on Kerry’s for a long moment. 

“Thank you.”

“Whatever it takes to keep you around,” she replied with a small smile. “And not just because I have a lot at stake personally.”

Susan rolled her eyes, but Kerry just raised her eyebrows.

“I’m serious,” she said sincerely. “We need you downstairs.You’re the second in seniority behind Tonya. And beyond that, you’re liked, you’re well-respected, and you’re cool under pressure… for the most part.”

Susan chuckled, which made Kerry smile. Then, she squeezed Susan’s hand back.

“There’s not many people who could lead the ER out of that disaster last summer,” she remarked in the same sincere tone. “The staff, the students - they look to you. You’re a trusted leader. We need you around.”

Susan felt emotion rise in her chest. 

She hadn’t shared her last conversation with Mark with anyone. Not to Kerry, not to Elizabeth - no one. She fully intended on taking it to her own grave. 

But in that moment, Susan suddenly wondered if she’d let it slip without meaning to. If the words Mark had imparted to her before saying goodbye for the last time had been shared beyond the two of them, no longer special in their secretness as they had been.

But out of the corner of her eye, she could see the bookshelf near Kerry’s desk. Interspersed in the binders and medical textbooks were framed photographs, offering her guests just the smallest glimpses of her personal life. 

On the top shelf was a framed photograph of ER staff at a Christmas party a few years ago. Mark was there, standing in the center, a Santa hat on over his bald head. And on the shelf below it, artfully placed so it was on the opposite side of the shelf was the photograph taken the day Susan had adopted Suzie.

There were five of them in the picture, but not the same five there were now. In place of their youngest daughter was an elderly woman, looking just as proud of her in that picture as she was of her own daughter. 

If her spirit lingered on in the people that knew her, Susan thought, then, surely, there was no reason why his couldn’t too. 

It would, of course. And, like the woman who had introduced them to the concept of the ghosts within us, he’d always be felt exactly when he was needed the most. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was planning out this chapter, I thought about the fact that it was going to end up similar to "uc" in that Susan decides she needs to take a break. In that one (spoilers), she decides to quit County right after they're set to return to County after being closed. Kerry ends up interviewing for a Chief of Staff position in Cincinnati, gets the job, and then they move. 
> 
> It felt a little too similar for my preference to go in this direction for this chapter, but ultimately, it came down to the fact that Susan just needs a break. Being around for the entire five years she's gone in canon takes a toll. And it doesn't help that emergency personnel are much more likely to experience high levels of secondary trauma because of all of the medical trauma they are exposed to. Whatever AUniverse we're in, it's a lot. She just needs a fucking break.
> 
> But in this AU, she doesn't quit County, but rather just takes a year-long break. We'll end on Annie's bat mitzvah, which takes place between S9 and S10, so we won't see her return in the course of this AU, but rest assured that she comes back around the fall of 2004, at which point she's rested and ready to take what she needs to do. 
> 
> Sidenote: I was going to write the line "I'll publish _two_ papers," but I've been working on a research manuscript for publication over the last several months, and I can honestly say that it just didn't seem feasble. Of couse, if I was off work with nothing else to do, I _might_ be able to publish two papers in a year... but, for right now, I'll leave that to Kerry Weaver.
> 
> There's only two chapters left :'( I'm very excited about both of them, but I'm also very sad because everything's coming to an end. I haven't decided if I want to publish Chapters 49 and 50 at the same time or do them separately. To be honest, it'll probably be one at a time just because I'm too excited about it, but we'll see. 
> 
> Until next time.


	49. Sunrise, Sunset

Kerry watched quietly from the doorway as Annie brushed her hair from her seat at the vanity in her bedroom (also known as her desk with a large mirror set against the wall in front of her). 

Her hair had grown down past her shoulders. It had always had a bit of a wave to it, but ever since Annie had started puberty, it had grown even wavier. It was nowhere near as curly as Michael’s, but Kerry expected it may end up with at least a little bit of a curl by the time she was done growing. 

Annie’d already changed into her dress. It was rather modest, reaching down to her knees with set-in sleeves landing mid-bicep on her arms. It wasn’t even patterned, though the magenta color seemed to track with her propensity to pick brightly colored things. And, given how well the color went with her fuschia crutches, Kerry figured it was a practical choice that was intended to be worn later on. 

Annie set the brush down and observed herself in the mirror for a moment. In doing so, she noticed Kerry in the doorway behind her, smiling serenely. 

She turned to look at her, which Kerry took as permission for her to enter. 

“I’ve got presents for you,” Kerry stated, holding up a small gift bag. 

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to get presents until afterwards?” Annie said, her brow furrowing.

“Well, these are presents you need beforehand.” Kerry stepped forward and set the bag on the desk. As Annie turned back around in her chair, Kerry made eye contact with her in the mirror and, raising her eyebrows, said, “Also, I’m your mother. If I want to give you presents now, I’m going to give you presents now.”

Annie smiled. Kerry kissed her on the head and then turned back for the doorway. 

“First things first,” she said, pulling a tall box into the room. “For you.”

Upon seeing the box, Annie perked up. 

“Oh, good,” she said in a tone that was both excited and relieved. “I was starting to think they wouldn’t get here in time.”

Kerry pulled it over to the desk to let her open it. She didn’t bother asking for scissors as Annie immediately tore the top flap off to look inside.

“I hope they’re the right color,” Kerry mused as Annie pulled the royal blue crutches from the box. “Because it’s too late to send them back.”

“No, they’re right,” Annie said, a small smile growing on her face as she looked them up and down. 

“Do you want me to adjust them for you?” 

“No,” Annie replied, shaking her head. “I can do it.”

Kerry watched as Annie looked at her pink crutches for a moment before starting to change the length settings on the new ones.

“You’re up to two notches?” Kerry asked, raising an eyebrow as Annie lengthened the shaft of one of the crutches.

“Yeah,” Annie replied as she compared one of the blue to one of the pink. “I changed them a couple weeks ago because they suddenly felt too short.”

She looked up at Kerry in the mirror, her small smile turning into a smirk at the look on Kerry’s face.

“Why?” she asked, excitement growing in her voice. “Is that what you use?” 

“I… don’t remember,” Kerry replied with a shrug (which only served to make Annie smile even broader).

Annie set the new crutches against the desk next to her. Kerry set her own crutch beside them (pretending not to notice that it was the same height as Annie’s) and then reached into the gift bag.

“Now, this one is actually from your dads and your grandparents, but Daddy said I could give it to you because he figured I’d be helping you get ready,” she explained as she handed a square box to Annie. “He said that they picked it out special for you.”

Annie opened the box. 

Inside was a brand new kippah. There was a red circle in the center with colorful rings alternating with white ones until the edge, which was ringed in purple.

“It’s a rainbow,” Annie said, smiling as she picked the skullcap up out of the box and held it up.

“Do you know why?”

“Because of you and Daddy?” she replied slowly, thinking of the gay pride flag Michael had shown her on a trip to Boystown.

“Yes,” Kerry said with a shrug of acknowledgement. “But do you know why else?”

Annie observed it closely for a moment before glancing up at Kerry in the mirror and furrowing her brow.

“Because the rainbow was the sign of God’s promise to Noah,” Kerry said, stroking Annie’s hair. “That so long as God’s people did as God asked, He would never bring the floods again. And, today, you’re doing what God asks of you.”

Annie cocked her head slightly in question at her mother’s seemingly surprising theological knowledge. 

“What? I paid attention in Sunday School,” Kerry informed her seriously. “Do you really think Grandma would have let me get away with  _ not?” _

Annie considered this for a moment and then nodded in acknowledgement. 

She lifted the kippah over her head. Once pleased with its location, Kerry held it for her as she slid a few Bobby pins towards her. 

“Is there a blessing we’re supposed to say?” Kerry asked as Annie handed her one of the pins to secure the cap in place.

“I don’t know,” Annie replied with an emphatic shrug. 

“You’re the expert, Annie,” Kerry said, raising a hand defensively.

“Not in putting on a kippah,” Annie grumbled as she handed Kerry another pin. “I’ve never done that before.”

Kerry chuckled as Annie handed her two more pins. She slid them into place before sweeping Annie’s hair back over her shoulders. 

For a moment, she just stood there with her hands on Annie’s shoulders before she inhaled deeply and reached into the bag again. The box she pulled out this time was much smaller than the first. 

“Now, this one has a story,” she began, closing her hand over the lid of the box. “You see, in Christianity, we don’t have bat mitzvahs. The closest thing we have is called confirmation. And it’s sort of similar in that it’s an acceptance of your faith. When you get to be old enough - about junior high age - you  _ confirm _ your baptism. It’s assumed that your parents baptized you as a baby, but this time, you make the decision to accept and affirm it. 

“And that’s kind of like what you’re doing today. You’re affirming your faith for yourself. Accepting your responsibilities and traditions as a Jewish woman. Not that you’ve ever  _ denied _ them, but, still.”

Kerry opened the box and pulled out a single pearl set in silver filigree on a long silver chain. 

“Grandma gave me this for my confirmation when I was twelve years old. Back in 1973,” she said, holding the necklace up so Annie could see it. “And Grandma was given it for  _ her _ confirmation when  _ she _ was twelve. All the way back in 1926.”

Annie lifted up her hair so Kerry could put it around her neck. It fell just below the neckline of her dress, the pearlescence standing out against the magenta. 

“And Grandma’s mom, well, she was Catholic,” Kerry continued as she swept Annie’s hair back over her shoulders once more. “Her parents gave her this for her First Communion when she was only  _ eight _ . Do you know what year that would have been?”

Annie shook her head. 

“1898.”

_ “1898?” _

Kerry nodded. 

“Yep. This necklace has been in our family for over a hundred years, passed from mother to daughter on a celebration of her faith.” She set her hands on Annie’s shoulders. “And one day, if you have a daughter, you can give it to her for her bat mitzvah.”

“But what if I have more than one?” Annie asked, frowning slightly. 

Kerry smiled and leaned in closer towards her to whisper, “Then, you just give it to the eldest.”

Annie nodded for a moment only to frown again. 

“But what if I have twins and they’re born at the same time?”

Kerry chuckled and straightened up. 

“Annie, if that happens,” she said, stroking Annie’s hair again, “we’ll sort it out then.”

Annie nodded again, more confidently this time, leading Kerry to chuckle once more. 

She watched for a long moment as Annie admired the necklace in the mirror. She was no doubt thinking of the necklace’s history and significance, just as she had when Mildred had told her the story as she put it around her neck thirty years prior. 

Kerry’s eyes rose from the necklace to the thirteen-year-old wearing it. 

To her hair, to her glasses, to her freckles, which it turned out weren’t just contained to a spattering over her nose when she was exposed to sunlight for prolonged periods of time (like, for example, on a soccer pitch several hours per day most days per week).

Following the freckles, Kerry’s eyes traveled from Annie’s face down to her arms. They paused briefly at the freckle/tan line in the shape of the cuffs of her crutches before continuing down the string bracelet Annie and Suzie had made for themselves (and one for Charlie) that they claimed had  _ nothing _ to do with the one Kerry wore.

“What?”

Kerry looked up at Annie in the mirror. At the sight of Annie looking at her expectantly, Kerry smiled. 

“Just admiring how beautiful you are,” Kerry said, emotion rising in her throat. 

She rubbed gentle hands down the tops of Annie’s arms. She looked at Annie in the mirror and then sighed. 

“Thirteen years ago today, I was very scared,” Kerry said quietly. 

“Because they were going to have to cut you open?”

Kerry chuckled. 

“Well, yes. That was  _ part _ of it,” she conceded. “But, mostly, I was scared because I had never been a mom before. And I was scared that I wasn’t going to do a good job. And I’d read a lot of books and I’d talked to a lot of people, but… but the truth is, you can’t really learn how to be a mom like that. You learn… You learn by watching other people do it and… and just by doing it yourself. 

“And the one thing that made me a little  _ less _ scared was that I knew that I had you dad with me. Because if there was anything I was sure of, it was that he was the kind of man who would make a good father. And I think he is. He’s a good dad to you…. Him and Abba both.”

Annie smiled slightly as she watched her mother in the mirror. 

“And when they took me in… You see, when you get a C-section - when you get cut open to have a baby - they put up this little curtain across your stomach so that you can’t see what they’re doing. And that’s because most people don’t want to know what they’re doing, but I  _ did. _ But I couldn’t see what they were doing, and they gave me medicine so I couldn’t  _ feel _ what they were doing, which only made me more scared.”

Kerry inhaled deeply. 

“I remember, at one point, I squeezed my eyes tight and I just started to pray. I didn’t even know what I was praying about. I was just praying. And then, I remember hearing this voice say very clearly, ‘Everything is going to be okay.’”

Kerry, who had closed her eyes while telling the story, opened them to look back at Annie. She smiled.

“Now, looking back, I think that voice was Grandma, because she was in there with me,” she remarked. “But I remember thinking that that voice was God… And maybe it was. God speaking through Grandma.”

At the thought of God reassuring her in the words of her mother, Kerry felt herself tear up. Annie must have noticed, given the way she frowned, but Kerry just smiled. 

“And when I opened my eyes,” Kerry said as the first tears began to roll down her cheeks, “in my arms was the most beautiful baby girl I had ever seen in my life. One that looked a lot like me but had her Daddy’s eyes.”

Annie smiled and then immediately narrowed her eyes. 

“You could tell that even though I looked all squishy like Charlie did when she was born?” she asked skeptically. 

Kerry fought the urge to roll her eyes and instead just shook her head. 

“Yes,” she said with a smirk. “I could tell that even though you looked all squishy like Charlie did when she was born.”

Kerry kissed Annie on the top of the head (careful to avoid the kippah) before wrapping her arms around her shoulders.

“My beautiful baby girl,” Kerry murmured into Annie’s hair. “The first of many… though, I didn’t know that at the time.” 

She squeezed Annie tight for a moment as more tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I am so proud of you,” she whispered before biting her lip against oncoming sobs. “And...And, speaking of people who are proud of you…”

Kerry gave herself a moment before reaching into the bag once more. With shaky hands, she pulled out an envelope and handed it to Annie.

Annie frowned in concern as she turned it over and slid the letter out. 

_ My dearest Annalise, _

_ In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And, in the days that followed, before He stopped to rest, He created everything in between. All in the plan that one day, the world would be graced with your presence.  _

_ On the day you were born, your father told me of an Ashkenazi tradition to name newborn babies after loved ones who have died in the belief that the loved one’s soul will live in on in the baby. And though I never had the chance to meet the great-grandmother for whom you are named, by all accounts I’ve heard, she was a woman of great substance and faith. Someone who did what she had to do to keep her family safe, even if it meant moving halfway across the world. One who stood firm in her beliefs and practiced her faith as God commanded her, even if doing so could cost her her safety. _

_ As you celebrate your bat mitzvah today, I hope you do so bearing her legacy just as much as you bear her name. But I know you will, because I know how hard you worked to get here. _

_ Congratulations, my dear. Or, perhaps more appropriately, I should say mazel tov.  _

_ May God bless you with as much joy and happiness as you bless all of us.  _

_ Love,  _

_ Grandma _

Annie looked up at Kerry, tears glistening in her eyes. 

“Is… Is this real?” she asked in a tiny voice. 

Kerry’s tears had started to flow freely the moment Annie had started reading the letter. She nodded.

“I found a box of them when we were cleaning out the old house,” she explained, fighting back sobs. “She wrote a bunch of them. Most of them were for me, but there were some for you, too. And even some for Mommy and Daddy and Suzie.”

Annie’s lip trembled as she looked back down at the letter, which only served to make the threat of sobs even stronger. 

“She knew she was never going to be here for it,” Kerry said, her voice breaking with emotion. “But she wanted to make sure that you knew she was here with you.”

Annie wiped at her eyes before any rogue tears could drip onto the paper in her hand. She looked up at Kerry. 

“Did you read it?” Annie asked, her hand twitching as if she was going to hand the letter to her.

“Yeah. I read most of them. I couldn’t help myself, ” Kerry admitted, wiping at her own eyes. She let out a watery chuckle. “Even though while I was reading them, I could hear her voice in my head telling me I shouldn’t be doing that.”

Annie smiled weakly and then tucked the letter back into its envelope and put it on the desk in front of her. In setting it down, she could see the words  _ For Annie’s bat mitzvah _ in faint pencil on the back, making her wonder what other life events her Grandma had written letters to her for.

(Amongst those Kerry found were _Annie’s high school graduation,_ _Annie’s wedding,_ and _Annie’s first child._ Kerry had read them and many others in the box, but had stopped short at the one addressed to both her and Susan that was labeled _For the day of your wedding_ and one without a specified recipient that simply read _Should she pass before you do.)_

Kerry inhaled deeply. 

“Her letter inspired me to write this,” she said as she pulled the final object from the gift bag and handed it to Annie. “Think of it as another thing that Grandma gave to me that I’m giving to you.”

“... A card?” Annie asked as she turned another envelope (this time of the Hallmark Card variety) over in her hands. 

“It’s what's written  _ on _ the card,” Kerry clarified. “But I don’t want you to open it yet. I want you to wait until right before you go up, okay?”

Annie, who had made to open the envelope, stopped and nodded. She picked up her little backpack purse from off the floor and stowed the card safely away inside it. 

There was a shout and scuffle from somewhere beyond Annie’s bedroom door, a signal to both of them that everyone else was dressed, downstairs, and ready to go. 

Kerry picked up her crutch from where it leaned against the desk and then stepped back to let Annie stand up. 

But instead of immediately reaching for her own crutches, Annie wrapped her arms around her in a bear hug. And though the dark blue of Kerry’s blazer hid it well, she could tell from the residual dampness that the hug hadn’t just been meant for her.

Suzie glanced around, her brow furrowing.

“Hey, Uncle Mike?” 

Michael, who was passing by her on his way to greet his recently-arrived parents, stopped in his tracks.

“Yeah, Suzie?” 

“Why are all the boys wearing hats?” she asked, 

“Uh, well, we have a tradition to cover our heads as a sign of respect.” Michael leaned his head forward so she could see his kippah. “They’re called kippot, or sometimes yarmulkes. Men and boys wear them whenever we’re here in the temple. And for things like this where we have guests, we ask that they wear them as well.”

Suzie nodded as she watched Annie help Carter put on a kippah on the other side of the room. 

“So, if only the boys do it, then, why does Annie have one?”

“Because she’s the bat mitzvah,” Michael answered simply. “She chose to wear one today. Some girls do, some girls don’t.”

“So, only boys and bat mitzvahs can wear them?” Suzie asked, almost put out.

Michael narrowed his eyes slightly as an understanding smirk grew on his face. 

“Do  _ you _ want to wear one?”

“Am I allowed?”

Michael considered the question for a moment and then shrugged. 

“I guess?” he replied. “You just have to give it back when we’re done.”

Suzie lit up, so he led her to where Adam was ushering, explaining the significance of them in further detail. 

Across the room, Margaret Levin was hugging Kerry tight. 

“Oh, Kerry, dear, we’ve missed you,” she said, before (playfully) scolding, “It’s been too long.”

“It has been a while, hasn’t it?” Kerry remarked (preferring not to think about the last time they’d had reason to see the elder Levins).

When Margaret released Kerry from the hug, she held her at arm’s length to look her over. The action immediately made Kerry feel like she was a teenager again and not a middle-aged mother of three.

Margaret then stepped aside to let Michael Sr. hug their former daughter-in-law. His hug was far shorter than his wife’s, but just as sincere.

“You remember Susan?” Kerry asked, motioning to Susan once Michael Sr. had stepped back.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Margaret said brightly as she shook Susan’s offered hand. “Lovely to see you again.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Susan replied, smiling. “And, I apologize in advance if I forget your names at any point. They’ve been committed to memory as Bubbe and Zayda, so it’s kind of hard to switch back.”

“And that’s perfectly fine with us,” Michael Sr. said, chuckling as he waved her away. “They are titles of honor.”

“Of course,” Susan said with a small nod. “Just so long as you’re aware that more than just Annie are going to be calling you that today.”

Margaret and Michael Sr. smiled broadly. Then, Margaret nodded towards the toddler in Susan’s arms.

“Is this Charlie that we have heard so much about, but haven’t yet had the chance to meet?” she asked, tickling Charlie

The glance Margaret shot Kerry out of the corner of her eye at the pointed statement was a good reminder to Kerry exactly why Margaret Levin and Mildred Weaver had gotten along so well.

“It is indeed.” Susan looked down at Charlie and then pointed to Margaret. “Can you say hi, Charlie?”

Charlie looked at Margaret for a moment and then answered with a grumpy, “No,” before burying her face in Susan’s neck. 

“I’m sorry,” Susan said with a sheepish smile. “Our nap schedule is a little  _ off _ today.”

Margaret just chuckled and stepped back before glancing at Kerry once more. 

“All I’m going to say is that the middle one was just about her age the last time we saw you,” Margaret said with a nod towards Charlie. Then, she sighed. “Maybe it’s just that I’ve been thinking about you a lot this week. You and your parents both.”

Kerry gave her a weak smile and nodded. (After all, the last time they’d seen each other was at Mildred’s funeral.)

“Me too,” Kerry replied quietly.

Margaret nodded, inhaling deeply through her nose. Then, she smiled. 

“I was thinking about the first time you and your family came over for Shabbat. I remember being very nervous because, well, we’d had guests over before and it had always been fine, but we’d heard horror stories of people whose friends had tried to convert them halfway through dinner. So, I was fretting the whole time I cooked. But then, we heard a knock on the door and went to open it and there was your father wearing a kippah.”

Margaret shook her head in surprise even now, thirty years after the fact. 

“And we’d discussed at length your time in Africa and your family’s involvement in the church, so I kept thinking, ‘What did I miss? What did I miss?’ I mean, did he go out and buy one?” Margaret asked rhetorically before looking Kerry in the eye. “Because that was the kind of man your father was. It would not have surprised me one bit if he’d gone to the library to look up how to be a good guest and then gone out and gotten one because he thought he needed one.

“Then, finally, I just broke down and asked him, and he said he’d bought it with his pocket money when he was ten or eleven because he grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and all his friends had one, but he didn’t.”

Those listening chuckled at the story, including Michael (Jr.), who had joined them after getting Suzie situated. 

“He said it was helpful once all his friends started turning thirteen, so he didn’t have to keep borrowing one,” Margaret finished. Then, she looked at her son in question. “He left that one to you, didn’t he, Michael? I remember Mildred giving it to you to wear at his funeral.”

“Yep. It’s the one I’ve got on right now.” He pointed to the skullcap and then immediately frowned. “Oh, shoot. I should have given that one to Annie.”

Kerry rolled her eyes and patted Michael on the arm. 

“I think it’s fine,” she assured him before looking at the elder Levins. “The one you all picked out is beautiful.”

“You should see the tallit that goes with it,” Michael Sr. said. 

He patted the light cardboard box tucked under his arm and winked. Margaret and Michael nodded in agreement. 

Then, Margaret looked at Kerry, her expression suddenly melancholy. 

“I miss them,” she said in a voice low in volume but high in emotion. 

Kerry bit her lip and nodded, secretly grateful she’d chosen against eye makeup for the day as tears started to well in her eyes again. Margaret took her hand and squeezed it tight for a moment before letting go. Then, she glanced at Susan.

“You never met Henry, did you?” When Susan shook her head, Margaret queried, “But you knew Mildred.”

“Yes, I did.”

“They were good people,” Margaret said with a sad smile. “Very good people.”

“Yes, they were,” Susan affirmed. She glanced sideways at Kerry and smiled. “They certainly raised one.”

Left to her own devices as her parents and Annie greeted family and friends, Suzie had settled on a pew to look at the ornate stained glass along the far wall. But as she examined the various shades of blue glass that made up a large Star of David, she noticed a group of boys standing nearby. 

Three of the four of them looked to be about as old as Annie, with the fourth boy maybe a couple years older. All of them had on suits and kippot. 

The older boys and the two younger boys on either side of them were all looking intently at the boy closest to Suzie. He had dark olive skin and a blue kippah over his dark curly hair. He had on a gray suit and wore glasses and behind his ears were the little things Momma had told her some people used to hear better. But where the ones Suzie had seen before were peach or silver, this boy’s were bright red, like he didn’t care if people noticed them or not.

“Now,” the oldest boy began to the boy in the gray suit. “First things first: You gotta breathe. You can’t talk if you can’t breathe.”

Suzie inched down the pew to see the boy’s face better. Just as it came into view, she saw him give the older boy a look of exasperation.

“Wow, Josh,” the boy said flatly. “That was so enlightening.”

The older boy Josh rolled his eyes, but continued in the same sincere tone.

“You have to make her feel good,” he told the boy seriously. “Compliment her. Tell her she looks nice.”

“Or that she smells good,” another boy piped up. 

All three of the other boys (and Suzie) all gave the fourth boy a look of disgust. 

“What?” he asked, looking between them in confusion.

“Don’t tell a girl she smells good,” Josh said, frowning. “That’s gross, dude.”

“But it’s a compliment,” the boy insisted. 

Josh, the boy in the gray suit, and the other boy all exchanged glances and then shrugged. 

“I guess,” Josh conceded. “But she’s gonna think you’ve been sniffing on her.”

The fourth boy crossed his arms in disappointment. The boy in the gray suit looked at him for a second and then back up at Josh. 

“Can I go talk to her now?”

“Do you think you’re ready?” Josh asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I was ready at  _ my _ bar mitzvah,” the boy in the gray suit said through gritted teeth. “You all wouldn’t let me.”

“Well, if you think you’re ready, then go do it,” Josh said, motioning towards the growing crowd near the door. “But remember - it’s  _ her _ bat mitzvah. Which means what she says goes.”

The three younger boys all started snickering. Josh frowned. 

“What?”

“Dude, we’re talking about  _ Annie Levin,” _ one of the boys said. 

“Yeah,” Josh said slowly. “So?” 

“What Annie says  _ always _ goes,” the boy in the gray suit stated with enough confidence to suggest that he’d experienced it first hand several times.

“Nu-uh.”

_ “Yeah-huh,” _ the other boys replied in unison.

“When was the last time somebody disagreed with Annie and actually got away with it?” the boy furthest from Suzie asked Josh seriously.

(Little did they know that they were being watched by the  _ true _ last person to disagree with Annie and get away with it. And, given the watcher’s smirk, she was very proud of that.)

“Miranda Adler. Last year at camp,” the boy who suggested complimenting a girl on her smell said, raising his eyebrows. “I heard that she and Annie argued so bad that Miranda begged her family to switch temples.”

“I heard Annie  _ killed _ her,” the other younger boy said excitedly. 

“I heard Miranda’s dad got a new job and they moved,” the boy in the gray suit said in a tone of flat finality.

All three other boys gave the boy in the gray suit a look of exasperation for ruining their fun with rationality. The boy in the gray suit just ignored them.

“Can I go talk to her now?”

Suzie didn’t hear their answer as she was too busy shuffling her way down the pew in the direction of her older sister.

“Annie! Annie, Annie, Annie, Annie!”

_ “What?” _ Annie said through gritted teeth as Suzie bounced up and down in front of her.

“Somebody wants to talk to you!” Suzie announced happily. 

“A  _ lot _ of people want to talk to me.”

“But this one is  _ different,” _ Suzie said as her grin began to turn into a smirk. “And it’s  _ really _ important.”

“What are you talking-” Annie caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and immediately stiffened. “Hi, Ethan.”

The boy in the gray suit nodded stiffly himself. 

“Hi, Annie.”

Annie cast a sideways glance at Suzie, who was looking between the pair of them, smirking mischievously. She muttered, “Go away,” but Suzie just shook her head.

Ethan was about three inches shorter than Annie, but that didn’t seem to faze him. He just pulled himself up to full height and looked her in the eye.

“Uh, my parents wanted me to tell you… Well, to  _ thank _ you for inviting us. Oh, and, uh… Mazel tov.”

“Thank you.”

“And I wanted to say…” Ethan inhaled deeply. “That you look very nice.”

Pink began to creep into both of their cheeks. 

“Thank you,” Annie said quietly. “So do you.”

“Thanks,” Ethan replied, nodding. “Also, I, uh… I wanted to ask if, at the party later, if you would like to-”

“Yes,” Annie answered, cutting him off.

Ethan gulped.

“I haven’t asked anything yet.”

“Oh, right,” Annie said, nodding quickly. “Sorry.”

Ethan took a pause to breathe and figure out where he had left off. Annie took the opportunity to shoot a look at the boys who were watching from several feet away.

“I, uh,” Ethan continued, “I, uh, wanted to ask if you would like to… to dance with me?”

Annie gave the smallest of nods and then replied in an equally small voice, “Yes, please.”

At her affirmative answer, Ethan perked up. 

“Yeah? Yeah, good. Um… Great,” he said with a sigh of relief. Then, he pointed towards the pews. “I should, uh… I should go sit down, so you can do the… the thing. But, uh… But we’ll dance. Later.”

Annie nodded, which made Ethan smile even broader before he turned to join the other boys, who all clapped him on the back in congratulations. 

“Annie’s got a boyfriend. Annie’s got a boyfriend,” Suzie sang quietly so only Annie could hear her.

Annie sneered at Suzie, but the effect was lessened significantly by the deeper flush in her cheeks. 

“I can’t hurt you because we’re in temple,” she threatened Suzie in a whisper. “But, I  _ promise _ I will when we get home.”

“Mmm-mm,” Suzie said, shaking her head. “You  _ can’t. _ If you do, I’ll tell your boyfriend, and he won’t want to dance with you anymore.”

Behind the sisters growing dangerously close to breaking one or more of the Ten Commandments, three of Annie’s four parents stood watching the conversation with amusement.

“What do you say?” Michael said, turning to Kerry. “Meet back here in thirty years for  _ their _ kid’s b’nai mitzvah?”

“Either that or they both turn out to be gay.”

Michael just shrugged. 

“Didn’t stop us.”

“Is it possible to get deja vu for other people?” Susan wondered aloud before looking at Kerry and Michael. “Because I feel like I just witnessed you two at your bar mitzvah.”

“Oh, no. She handled that  _ much _ better than I did,” Kerry said, shaking her head. “I was much too shy to dance.”

Kerry turned her head in Michael’s direction. 

“I’ll dance with you now. If the offer’s still open.”

“She just has to be drunk first,” Susan added in a whisper.

Kerry shot her a look, but Michael just chuckled. 

“You’re not as wrong as you’d think, Susan,” he said brightly. “Look at this.”

He dug around in his pocket for a moment and then pulled out a Polaroid photograph. He held it out to Kerry who took it and, upon looking at it, immediately rolled her eyes.

“Oh my- Where did you find this?” she said in a tone that seemed to be both amused and mortified.

“My dad gave it to me,” Michael said, grinning. “Apparently, he and my mom were looking at old pictures before they came down and found it. It’s the first day we met.”

Kerry nodded and then shook her head. She held it out to Susan. 

It was a faded photograph of Michael (Jr.) and Kerry when they were about Annie’s age. Both were in jeans and t-shirts, smiling uncomfortably for the camera. Sitting at a dining room table on the far side of the room from them was a much younger Margaret Levin chatting with Mildred and Henry Weaver.

(If it wasn’t for the fact that Kerry had hair nearly down to her waist in the photograph and only one crutch, Susan would have been easily convinced the redhead in the picture was Annie.)

“Wow,” Susan said as she looked from the photo first to Annie and then to her parents. “You two looked  _ awkward.” _

Kerry scoffed, but Michael just nodded in agreement. 

“I don’t remember that day being that awkward,” Kerry remarked, frowning. 

“Neither do I. I think we just clammed up because my dad wanted to play with his new camera,” Michael agreed as Susan handed the photograph back to him. Then, he grinned even wider. “But that’s not the best part. Look.”

He turned the photograph over, but it was angled in such a way that Susan couldn’t tell what he was showing them. But, whatever it was, it made Kerry’s mouth fall open in surprise and her eyes grew wide. 

“That’s… That’s not possible,” she said, looking from the photograph to him. “They added that later.”

“Nope. Confirmed it with my mom,” Michael replied, still smiling as he shook his head. “It would have to have been after his birthday, because that’s when he got the camera, and Mom said that the first time you all came over, she was out in the garden. She said that it was the first time she’d had the chance to weed in weeks because she’d been preparing for the Adams case, which went to trial the first week of August.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Susan asked, straining to see over the top of Charlie’s head. 

Kerry handed the photo back to her. 

_ “Meeting the Weavers. July 26th, 1973,” _ Susan read before her eyes grew wide like Kerry’s and she turned to them both in shock. “You two met on Annie’s birthday?”

“Thirty years ago today,” Michael said with his biggest grin yet. “And I can promise you that this is  _ not _ what we thought we’d be doing today.”

Susan looked at the note again before handing it back to Michael once more. 

“You know,” she said, adjusting Charlie in her arms, “as someone who doesn’t know where they stand on the whole ‘God thing,’  _ that’s _ the kind of thing that would make me believe.”

Michael opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but Adam and an older man tapped him on the shoulder and informed him that it was time to start. 

Susan and Kerry (and Charlie) started their way towards the front pew. 

Annie was seated on the far end with her eyes closed, muttering her memorized prayers to herself. When Kerry slid into the pew next to her, she opened her eyes in surprise and then, upon seeing who it was that had joined her, exhaled in relief. 

Kerry put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to her, kissing her on the forehead.

“Do you have the card I gave you?” Kerry whispered as she pulled away. When Annie nodded, Kerry suggested, “Why don’t you take a look at it?”

Annie nodded again and then picked up her little backpack purse off the floor. She pulled the envelope Kerry had given to her earlier out of it and slid a thumb under the flap to open it.

The card was plain white except for a simple sketch of a mother and a daughter hugging each other and holding hands. The shape of their bodies and outstretched hands made the shape of a heart. 

Annie looked at the drawing for a moment, a small smile on her face. But when she opened it, her smile faded into a look of confusion.

Written inside was a phrase in Hebrew that she didn’t recognize, but that didn’t confuse her nearly as much as the fact that it was clearly written in her mother’s handwriting. And though Kerry knew a few different languages, Annie was quite sure Hebrew wasn’t one of them. 

But before she could ask what it meant or why Kerry had written it, she saw the phrase written in English beneath it. 

The words filled her in a way she couldn’t quite articulate. They made her feel lighter, like she could breathe a little better as she tucked the card away and started her way to the front. 

And as they called her up to the bimah so that her grandparents and fathers could pass her the Torah just as they did the responsibility she was accepting, she felt the words begin to melt away her nervousness and replace it with excitement. And the excitement was made all the stronger as Michael and Adam placed her tallit around her shoulders in preparation for her reading. 

The cloth looked as if it had been painted with watercolors. It was deep purple and blue near her shoulders and then faded through the colors of the rainbow down to red at the bottom before the tzitzit carefully tied for her by her fathers and grandparents the night before, blessing by blessing. 

As she stood up in front of friends, family, and congregation, all awaiting her to begin, she could see her mothers and sisters in the front, watching her with pride. And, when she made eye contact with Kerry, she could read on her lips the same words she’d read in the card. 

_ “You are all my dreams come true.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at the end of the next chapter ;)


	50. Epilogue: Chaos Theory Pt. (SARS-CoV-) 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: The following is a fictitious presentation of current events (August 2020). It may be triggering to some readers.

_Mid-July 2020_

If there was anyone who did not understand the concept of ‘reading the room,’ it was the man sitting in the as-socially-distanced-as-possible ER waiting area without a mask, coughing in between his loud assertions that the novel Coronavirus was a hoax.

“It’s just not real,” he insisted to everyone in the vicinity (which was no closer than six feet). “It’s all lies, I tell ya. Lies, lies, lies. All made up by the liberal media to influence the election.”

A young female intern, gowned from head to toe, a teal N95 Respirator mask snugly over her nose and mouth, cocked her head as the man coughed violently into his elbow. (Which, in turn, caused everyone else waiting to observe him in horror.)

“If the virus isn’t real,” the young woman asked slowly, “then, why are you coughing?”

“Asthma,” the man said in between wheezing breaths. “And allergies.”

From behind their own masks, everyone else around cast him dirty looks as he coughed again. They, at least, were all well aware of the two people who had come in within the last hour and had to immediately be intubated. 

“It’s a hoax, I tell you,” the man said as his coughing fit ended. “It’s just one big hoax. One big damn lie. The virus doesn’t exist!”

“Well, Mr. Dixon,” Susan Lewis, gowned and masked like the intern, said as she drew even with him, reading off her iPad. “According to your test results, the virus _does_ exist and it exists inside you. So, I’m going to need you to quarantine in your home for fourteen days and the public health department will be in touch for contact tracing.”

Mr. Dixon looked at her in shock before coughing again. 

“That’s ridiculous,” he spat. “Run your tests again.”

Susan sighed deeply.

“I have to get special permission in order to run tests twice because we’re low on supplies,” she explained flatly. “It would be a while before I could. So, I recommend that you use that time to consider how much you really _want_ another test, considering you nearly cried when I swabbed you the first time.”

The sick or injured who had been listening to the man rant while they waited to be seen chuckled at Mr. Dixon’s expense as the man’s face grew red with embarrassment. 

“Forget this,” he snarled, shoving his chair back and then coughing again. “I’m leaving.”

“Alright,” Susan said, tapping the iPad again and holding it up to him along with her stylus. “In that case, I need you to-”

He took the stylus and scribbled on the screen before throwing it back at her and turning for the door. 

Susan turned back for the desk.

Though they did their best to remain distanced even when in full PPE, the need for so many hands on deck made the desk more crowded than it should be. 

Some, like Susan and Tonya, as well as a few of the nurses, had been around for decades. Others, like the interns, had just started only a few weeks before. And still others, like Carter, had been drafted by the leadership to help out when older doctors or those with elderly family members resigned. 

Rachel Greene, though the youngest of the ER Attendings, had been forced to stay home since early March. Thankfully, it was not out of illness though. She had just been four-months-pregnant with her second child when the pandemic began and her mother (the lawyer) and step-mother (the physician) made a decision on her behalf that she should not work in the ER during the crisis to protect her and her baby’s health.

As Susan reached the desk, she looked at the Leaving Against Medical Advice waiver she’d had Mr. Dixon sign before he left. 

“Oh, look,” she muttered. “A _Trump/Pence 2020._ I think that gives me AMA bingo,” 

Susan shook her head, careful not to bump her face shield, before glancing around the desk. 

“Where are the wipes?”

“A patient stole them,” one of the nurses replied with a shrug.

“How? I thought we locked them up this time?”

“They broke the lock.”

At one of the curtains close by, a young White man squirmed as the physician attending to him stuck a long cotton swab up his nose. 

“Hey, lady _\- lady!”_ he exclaimed. “You don’t have to stick it in that far!”

“And you didn’t need to go out with your friends on your parents boat last weekend either, but we’ve all gotta do what we’ve gotta do, right?” the physician hissed as she removed the swab from his nose and dropped it into the tube in her hand. “Now, put your mask back on.”

The man’s face was still contorted in discomfort as he pulled the Chicago Bulls mask back up over his face. 

“I thought we told you not to let her come down here after getting off the phone with medical supply companies,” nurse Sam Taggert said with a chuckle as she logged vital signs into one of the desktops.

“Or the Mayor’s office,” someone else chimed in. 

“Or the CDC,” yet another added. 

“I promise you that she’s been down here all morning,” Susan replied defensively. “I think she just woke up like this.”

Some of those, most of whom were newer and therefore didn’t have the practical experience to know better than to question whether Kerry Weaver could just be like this for no reason, chuckled. Those who did know better just furrowed their brows in concern. 

“It just supports my theory, though,” Susan continued as she watched Kerry stalking down the hallway in the opposite direction, “that it’s a good thing she got her hip replaced when she did. Otherwise, she’d be threatening to reach brain in two different ways.”

Geena, the intern who had spoken to Mr. Dixon, frowned from behind her N95. 

“What do you mean?”

Susan was about to roll her eyes when she remembered Geena had only been one the ER for about fourteen days and it had been over fourteen _years_ since Kerry had gotten surgery. 

“Dr. Weaver got surgery several years ago to get her hip replaced,” Susan explained to the intern. “Before that, she used a crutch to walk.”

“Oh, I see,” Geena said, nodding in understanding. “So, you mean she would threaten to put the _crutch_ up their nose.”

“Yes,” Susan replied flatly. “Up their _nose.”_

Before Geena could ask why everyone else was laughing, the Ambulance Bay doors burst open and paramedics in N95s rushed in. Susan finished wiping down her iPad and then adjusted the strap over her shoulder so it hung behind her as she fell into step with the incoming gurney. 

“Another virus patient?” she asked.

She was ready to shout for a scope and an ET tube when the paramedics shook their heads. 

“Nope. GSW.”

“You mean people still get _shot_ in Chicago?” Susan asked, unsure if her tone of disbelief was a joke or genuine.

“You do if you’re down at City Hall protesting,” one of the paramedics - a Black woman - remarked as they continued towards Trauma One.

Susan pointed them on and then turned back down the hall.

“Kerry, need you in Trauma One,” she called out, pointing towards the yellow trauma room.

Kerry held up the swab and tube in her hand, her expression of frustration clear though half of her face was obscured. 

“I’m a little bit busy!” she called back tersely.

“GSW,” Susan said, nodding on.

Even down the hall, she could see Kerry’s eyes grow wide with the same sort of disbelief Susan had that the ER was needed for something _other_ than boarding the growing number of COVID patients. (Unfortunately, in recent months, if it wasn’t virus patients, it was more often than not protestors bearing wounds from rubber bullets or choking on tear gas.)

“What have we got?” Kerry asked as she backed into the trauma room where Susan and a few others were already setting to work.

“32-year-old White man, rubber bullet to the chest,” the paramedic replied. “Some contusions and lacerations from trying to run away. GCS is 6.”

“No breath sounds on the right. Tracheal shift suggests a pneumothorax,” Susan said as she listened to his chest. 

“Have we paged Surgery?” Kerry said as she passed Susan supplies requested to insert a chest tube. 

“On their way,” one of the nurses called out as they hooked the young man up to a chest monitor.

“You mean they aren’t here yet?”

“We just paged them two minutes ago,” the nurse replied in defensive confusion. 

“Well, it’s not like they’ve got anything else to do,” Kerry muttered. 

Susan made the incision in the man’s side and then inserted the chest tube. Immediately, blood began to pour out of the tube into the Thoroseal.

“He’s hemorrhaging,” Susan said, lifting it up to show Kerry.

“He’s got anterior rib fractures,” Kerry said, observing the man’s chest. “One of them could have lacerated the atria.”

She took a half-step back so the nurse could get him on the monitor. Once one, it went off, confirming Kerry’s assertion with a reading of atrial fibrillation.

“We need to shock him. Charge to sixty,” Kerry instructed.

A nurse handed her the paddles. Another put down the pads before the machine beeped. 

_“Clear.”_

Kerry put the paddles down on the man’s chest, but it did little. 

“Charge to one hundred,” she called out. 

“It’s no use,” Susan said firmly. “He’s bleeding too fast. We need to get the laceration fixed before shocking him will be of any use.”

“Fine. Then, prep for a midline thoracotomy,” Kerry said, handing the paddles off. “Where the _hell_ is Surgery?”

“They’ll be here,” Susan assured her. 

As soon as the words left her mouth, two doctors backed in through the trauma room doors. They were just as gowned up as the ER staff, but the scrubs on under their gowns were blue as opposed to green.

“We’re here, we’re here,” one of the surgeons announced breathlessly, like they’d rushed downstairs.

“Dr. Levin, you are _late,”_ Kerry hissed.

“Does that mean they’re already dead and we put all this shit on for _nothing?”_ Annie groaned as she approached the table.

“No. It means you need to crack his chest now instead of standing around talking about it,” Kerry said firmly. Upon noticing the second person who’d followed Annie in, she asked, “Who is this?”

“This is my new intern, Matthew,” Annie informed her as she slipped her arms out of her crutches and handed them to intern to set aside. 

“Your intern is a fully licensed physician,” Kerry snapped. “You should regard him as such.”

“And I _would,”_ Annie said earnestly, “but he has lost his name privileges for the day.”

“Ignore her, Annie,” Susan said flatly. “She’s a little _pissy_ this morning.”

“Because the Rona’s a nasty bitch, or just in general?” Annie asked, glancing between her mothers.

Annie called out for a 10-blade and an iodine swab as Susan considered the question.

“Both.”

Annie nodded knowingly as a nurse handed her the swab and scalpel as requested. Susan stepped back to next to where Matthew stood watching as Annie disinfected the man’s chest before using the scalpel to make an incision over his sternum. 

“What did you do to lose your name privileges?” Susan asked the surgical intern curiously. 

“All I said was that I didn’t like Lizzo,” Matthew replied with a shrug.

He was too busy watching Annie work to notice the way Susan’s brow furrowed and then her small shrug of acknowledgement indicating she understood Annie’s reasoning.

“Well, you might not know this, Matthew-” Susan began.

_“Doctor.”_

Susan rolled her eyes at her wife’s interruption, which came even amidst Annie instructing her to help retract the skin before calling for the sternal saw.

“Doctor…”

“Stevenson?” Matthew offered hesitantly. 

“Stevenson,” Susan repeated, nodding. 

She made to continue, but paused so as not to be drowned out as the sternal saw roared to life. 

Annie carefully guided it down the patient’s sternum before clicking it off and trading it for a requested nylon suture on a needle driver. 

“Well, you might not know this, Dr. Stevenson,” Susan began again as Annie started suturing the laceration on the man’s heart. “You see, Dr. Weaver and I have all these daughters.”

“Together?” 

“Yes. And when all this began, youngest daughter moved home from college and middle daughter moved in with her fiancé. But _oldest_ daughter and oldest daughter’s husband were about to buy a house when oldest daughter’s husband got furloughed, so they had to pull their offer and move in with us. 

“And it’s been interesting, because we realized it’s always been oldest and middle, middle and youngest, or all three of them in the house at once. It’s never just been oldest and youngest at the same time. And for the most part it’s been fine, except for a couple times like last night, when oldest and youngest daughters stayed up until two o’clock in the morning talking and watching _Schitt’s Creek.”_

“Which is especially concerning given that oldest daughter is an _essential worker,”_ Kerry added in a hiss, directly to Annie, “and should not be up until two o’clock in the morning on a work night.”

“Well,” Annie said slowly as she started the last suture. “In oldest and youngest daughters’ defense, it was _one_ o’clock in the morning…”

Kerry waited a brief second for her to go on.

“And?”

“Nope. That’s all I got,” Annie offered, the smile hidden behind her mask evident in her voice. “Cut?”

Kerry let out a huff, but clipped the suture off at Annie’s request. 

“Internal paddles,” Annie said, straightening up. When a nurse handed them to her, she asked, “Charge to ten.”

The nurse nodded. When the machine beeped, Annie called, “Clear,” and then shocked him. 

“Fifteen,” she called out when the monitor continued to screech.

The nurse nodded again and turned up the charge. Annie called to clear again and then shocked him once more. 

“Normal sinus,” the nurse called out. 

“Great. Does the OR know we’re coming?” At the others’ affirmative nods, she handed the paddles off and then tapped the side of the gurney twice. “Alright. Let’s get him upstairs.”

Annie stepped back to peel off her gloves and put a cleaner pair on before grabbing her crutches from where Matthew had set them against the wall. She threaded her arms through them and followed the others out into the hall.

Kerry rolled her eyes at her approach, as she did almost every time she saw her lately, thanks to Annie’s addition of biohazard symbols and warning stickers that read _CDC-Approved Social Distancing Enforcement_ to both of her crutches.

Annie paused where Susan and Kerry did outside the trauma room and looked to her intern, who, along with the nurses, had started moving the gurney towards the elevator. 

“Go ahead and take him up,” she called out to him, waving him on. “I’ll be up in a second.”

Then, she turned to Kerry.

“Okay,” she said with a sigh. “Is this _really_ about last night? I thought you liked _Schitt’s Creek._ You said it was funny, but tender.”

“It’s not about last night and it’s not about _Schitt’s Creek,”_ Kerry said with a huff. “It’s about the fact that this morning at breakfast, Charlie told me that while we were here working the other night, you two got _drunk_ together.”

“No, we didn’t,” Annie replied quickly, her widening eyes giving her away.

All it took was Kerry narrowing her eyes at her for a long moment before Annie conceded.

“Alright, fine,” Annie said, rolling her eyes. “She was going to go down the street to get something for herself. I thought it would be _better_ to give her something of mine. That way I could control what and how much she was drinking.”

Kerry just narrowed her eyes further. 

“How could she have gotten something for herself when she is not twenty-one?” she asked suspiciously.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because she said she would kick me if I did?” Annie offered before faltering further under her mother’s gaze. “Okay, okay. First of all, I was _not_ drinking. I was sober the entire time.

“Second of all, I gave her one Whiteclaw. _One._ If she got drunk off of one Whiteclaw, that’s not _my_ fault. That’s _her_ fault. For being a lightweight. _I_ don’t even get drunk off of one Whiteclaw, and I’m related to _you.”_

“Annie, you are the oldest sister. You are supposed to set the example,” Kerry stated firmly. “And that does not involve giving your underage sister alcohol.”

Annie considered this for a moment and then nodded seriously. 

“I hear you. You’re right. I’m the oldest sister,” she said before cheerfully adding, “Next time, _Suzie_ gives her the alcohol.”

“Annalise, if there’s a next time, you’re going to be grounded ‘til you’re thirty.”

Kerry turned on her heel towards the elevators, but Annie wasn’t done yet.

“So? That’s like a week from now,” Annie said with a shrug. “And it’s not like I can go out and do anything anyways. What would being grounded even _look_ like? Are you going to take away my phone?”

“Annie.”

“My laptop?”

_“Annie.”_

“My Netflix privileges?”

Kerry stopped a few feet from the elevators and turned back to raise a finger at Annie, counting on her Momma voice to off-set the fact that her eldest had four inches on her.

“Annalise Elisheva, go scrub into surgery before I take _those_ privileges away from you.”

Annie blinked. 

“I thought only Aunt Lizzie could do that,” she said with uncertainty in her voice. 

“And I am Aunt Lizzie’s _boss._ Now, _go.”_

She pointed Annie to the elevator car that had just _dinged_ to their floor. Knowing better than to pester her mother further (should she make good on her promise), Annie stepped inside. 

“And make sure you sanitize those crutches before you go in that OR,” Kerry called out in an afterthought.

“You act like I’ve never done this before,” Annie called back as the elevator door closed.

Kerry stood there for a moment before Susan joined her in the hall.

“Okay, be honest with me,” Susan said, narrowing her eyes. “Is this because she just got the Chief President job upstairs and you’re sad that she’s not the Chief President down here?”

“No. As long as she’s been in medicine, she’s always wanted to go into Surgery like her father, and I have always been supportive of that,” Kerry said in a sincere tone, raising her hands defensively. “And, frankly, over the last few months, it’s probably better that she’s _not_ in Emergency Medicine.”

“Oh, _I see._ It’s because she’s out here doing this, instead of figuring out how to Zoom teach from her living room or… running ten miles and then sitting on her ass for the rest of the day. Also, I meant to tell you, I think we need to give Charlie more chores.”

Kerry looked up at her, all frustration gone from her expression and replaced with one of amazement. 

“She’s going to be thirty in a week,” she said in a much quieter voice, filled with both awe and sadness. “She’s older than I was when I had her.”

“She’s going to be thirty,” Susan said, nodding. “Suzie is _twenty-five._ That means that October will be twenty-five years since your mom took one look at me and said, ‘You. You, my dear. You’re going to be the one who finally turns my daughter gay.’ But, you see, because I’m a woman, that was a compliment.”

“Oh, good Lord,” Kerry said, rolling her eyes as she turned down the hallway. 

“It’s true,” Susan maintained as she fell into step with her as they walked. “We always told you our first conversation was about Suzie, but really, it was about that.”

Kerry stopped and turned towards her, her look of displeasure returning. Her telling off was stopped, however, when Susan pulled herself up to full height and observed Kerry closely over the rim of her goggles.

“You see, she’s been married to a gay man for several years,” Susan said, making her voice sound as much like Mildred Weaver as she could manage. “And I’ve tried to tell her that if they were.... What’s it called? Moustaching? Bearding! Ah, yes. _Bearding_ for each other, then it’s perfectly fine. But she still won’t tell me. 

“So, here’s what we do. You move into our house. I’ll take care of your daughter, and in return, you woo mine. And, if it works, great! And,if not, _well_ … I get my answer either way.”

Kerry looked at her for a moment before a smile crept into her eyes. 

“That was not a bad impression of her.”

“Well, it helps that I have to wear these stupid things now,” Susan said, shaking her head to indicate the reading glasses she had on underneath her goggle and face shield. “So I can look over the rim of them at you the way she used to.”

“I think they make you look cute.”

“I think they make me look old. Like _you._ Or Annie,” Susan said emphatically. “And I’m only fifty-two, which is not old. Unlike some people I know who are pushing sixty.”

“I _just_ turned fifty-nine a few months ago,” Kerry replied, rolling her eyes. 

“Which means next year, you will be sixty,” Susan concluded. “Which is old.”

Kerry gave a small shrug of acknowledgement, before adding as an aside, “At least I’m not the one with the full head of gray hair.”

“Hey,” Susan said warningly. “That was the Rona’s fault, not mine. I had my appointment scheduled.”

“And I told you that was a decent excuse up until you let me take the clippers to it.”

Susan let out a huff, both at the statement and her long quiff and undercut, which was now salt-and-pepper gray instead of blonde thanks to the trim Kerry had given her a few weeks ago.

“It’s going to be blonde again.” When Kerry raised her eyebrows, Susan raised a finger. “It is going to be blonde again.”

“You keep saying that,” Kerry said with a small shrug. “But between you not wanting any of us to dye it and it not being safe for you to get it done for… I don’t know. A year or two… By then, you might be used to it.”

Susan shook her head. 

“I had _just_ told Charlie before all of this started that the only way that I was going to go completely gray was when _I_ turned sixty, or the world ended.” She let out a sigh. “I just didn’t expect that to be so soon.”

Kerry raised a hand as if to console her, but seemed to think better of it. 

She then turned towards the Suture Room, which was designated as the place for staff to change their PPE. Susan followed alongside her. 

“You know, I believe Annie when she said she wasn’t drinking,” Susan said as she yanked the door open for Kerry to enter.

“You don’t think she gave Charlie a Whiteclaw?” Kerry asked, frowning. 

“Oh, no. I believe _that._ I just meant I believed her when she said that she wasn’t drinking too,” Susan clarified before glancing at her wife out of the corner of her eye. “And, honestly, I was kind of surprised you were acting this way today. I feel like if you saw what I saw in her room, you’d feel a lot different.”

Kerry froze in the middle of taking off her gown. She looked at Susan, her eyes wide with impending anger. 

“Is she smoking weed? In the middle of a pandemic? That causes _respiratory illness?_ ” she asked as that same anger crept into her voice. “Oh, forget thirty. She’s gonna be grounded until she’s _dead.”_

“Will you relax? The only weed in the house belongs to _Charlie,_ who has already assured me that she’s only doing edibles until all this is over,” Susan explained. “And, besides, according to Suzie, she never shares anyways.”

Kerry stared at her for a moment.

_“What?”_

“I _do_ think Annie has gained some weight lately,” Susan remarked, ignoring Kerry’s question. “But I don’t think it’s due to the munchies.”

Kerry pulled on a new gown and started tying it behind her back. She inclined her head in acknowledgement. 

“I have noticed that,” she admitted. “But it kind of makes sense. I mean, all she does is come here and go home. She’s not out playing soccer like she normally would be.”

“Not even in the backyard with Ethan or Charlie,” Susan observed as she picked up her own gown.

Again, Kerry gave a small nod of acknowledgement. 

“Well,” she said, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves, “Ethan McDaniel has never struck me as the most _athletic_ young man. And, Charlie, well… I think Charlie put her foot down on playing soccer with Annie last summer when blocking one of Annie’s shots broke her finger.”

Susan swapped out her gloves as well and then followed Kerry back out into the hall. 

“It is interesting when you think about it though,” Susan thought aloud as they started back for the desk. “Annie’s not drinking. She’s gained some weight…. Not playing contact sports.”

“It’s the power of the pandemic. What can I tell you?” Kerry offered with a shrug. “It’s changed everything. Because you know what it takes to keep Annie from soccer.”

Susan thought about it for a moment and then nodded slightly.

“So, you don’t think the sonogram I saw on her bedside table has anything to do with it?”

Kerry stopped walking. For a moment, she just stared ahead of her before turning to look at Susan. 

“The sonogram?” she asked in a suddenly tiny voice.

“The sonogram,” Susan confirmed, nodding.

Kerry took another moment to consider this. 

“A sonogram like…” She swallowed hard, though the emotion could still be heard in her voice. “Like she’s gonna have a baby?”

“Well, I didn’t look at it too closely, because I didn’t want her and Ethan to think I was snooping... And also because I was in the middle of vacuuming when I saw it…” Susan said, before her smile grew so large Kerry could see it in her eyes. “But if I was reading it right, I think she’s going to have _two.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, thus, a new cycle of matriarchs is born.
> 
> Well, not _quite_ yet. Technically, the new cycle will be born when the babies are and that wouldn't be until December 2020, when Miriam Meredith and Mildred Elisheva McDaniels-Levinare introduced to the world. Annie will assume the title of 'Momma' and Kerry the title of 'Grandma.' (Susan has not picked out her grandma name yet because she wants it to arise organically like Elizabeth's, which is, for reasons only Rachel's two-year-old Mark seems to understand, is 'Banana.')
> 
> I have had so much fun building this universe over the last few months. This is the longest thing I've ever written, beating even "uc" by a _wide_ margin. It's to be expected, though, as I've found that the length of my stories are directly proportional to the amount of stress I'm under. And the last several months have been _very_ stressful. 
> 
> This story has helped ease that stress a lot though. It's been so nice not just to have something I enjoy writing and making stuff up for, but a group of avid readers who are just as engaged as I am. That's something so special to fanfiction, because I post chapter by chapter and can interact with you guys directly, just as you can interact with me. Thank you so much to each and every one of you for reading, and double thanks to everyone who has left comments. Part of what made writing this so much fun was getting to see what you guys got out of it and what stood out to you in the writing. 
> 
> Knowing me - and knowing this Stressful Event will not be over any time soon - it's likely I may write more in this universe (ala A Forest of Trees). I know for sure that I'm going to post some adult!Annie headcanons on [my tumblr](bwayfan25.tumblr.com) here in the next couple days if you're interested in more. There's likely going to be some one-shots posted there too before/instead of AO3. (Also, writing this modern chapter makes me want to write original _ER_ content in this AUniverse focusing on the next generation of ER staff and the original ER staff's children... We'll see.)
> 
> Thank you so much again for reading and I hope that I wrapped things up in a satisfying (and emotional) way. It's been a joy to write for all of you. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [My friends have always been the best of me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28650138) by [useless_fangirl_does_fanart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/useless_fangirl_does_fanart/pseuds/useless_fangirl_does_fanart)




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